A new voice steps forward to put our concerns and frustrations into words; that voice is Guiltless. The band will release their debut EP, “Thorns”, on February 23rd, 2024, via Neurot Recordings, today sharing the cover art, track listing, preorders, and the lead single “All We Destroy”.
Picking up where “A Storm of Light” left off, Guiltless was born from a love of experimental rock, noise rock, early industrial, sludge, and doom. The band is embodied by Billy Graves (Generation Of Vipers, A Storm Of Light) on drums, Dan Hawkins (A Storm Of Light) on guitar and noise, Sacha Dunable (Intronaut) on bass, and Josh Graham (A Storm Of Light, Battle Of Mice, Neurosis’ former visual artist) on guitar, vocals, and noise. Together they present a stripped down, visceral reaction to modern life; angular yet straight to the point, self-aware, surreal, and occasionally sarcastic.
Human singularity, a third world war, scorching deserts, rising seas – it’s all coming for us. The slow grind is already in motion, pushing concrete, bodies, Teslas, skyscrapers, shacks, banks, and Bitcoin into a collective abyss. Piles of discarded trash will inherit the earth. It’s anyone’s guess as to what happens next. Is this the end of the world? Who knows. Who cares? Stand by with the rest of us and watch it burn. We’re all guiltless. We’re all blameless.
Guiltless creates apocalyptic soundscapes in their imaginings of the surreal return to proto-human society, as well as what life might be like for the survivors of the next mass extinction event on “Thorns”. The opening track, “Devour-Collide”, is a song which addresses the decline of civilization, leaving time and space for the earth to heal, the band shouting, “Embrace the ruin, devour – collide, when the beasts dissolve, the meek revive”. There’s the bleak gut-reactional “All We Destroy”, the barren landscape conjured in “Dead-Eye”, and the EP ends with “In Radiant Glow”, a description of the unfolding of a hostile new world, post-extinction event. The conclusion of this narrative comes with the purgation of burning everything down to the ground and starting again.
Through this cycle of destruction and rebirth, Guiltless believes that art and music can give us solace or help us exercise our demons. Guiltless can be that cathartic release.
The first Guiltless single arrives as “All We Destroy”. Josh Graham writes: “‘All We Destroy’ is the song that set the tone of the band overall and defines a large portion of this first release. It’s a stripped-down arrangement compared to the other tracks but has a clarified pummeling energy/driving force. Lyrically bleak, it feels like the current state and trajectory of our planet, and is influenced by the short story by Margaret Atwood, Time Capsule Found On The Dead Planet.
Stream the new single “All We Destroy” below.
“Thorns” will be released on CD, cassette, and digital formats through Neurot Recordings on February 23rd, 2024, with 12″ vinyl to follow in June. All physical formats are spray-painted, hand-stamped, hand-numbered, with special paper elements; each copy is unique. Find preorders for all formats and merch here.
Tracklist:
1. Devour-Collide
2. All We Destroy
3. Dead-Eye
4. In Radiant Glow
Watch for additional previews of “Thorns” to post over the weeks ahead and expect more news from Guiltless soon as the band plots sporadic live actions and constructs their debut LP.
Weblinks:
guiltless.band
www.facebook.com/guiltlessband
