Guiltless to Release Debut EP Thorns Feb. 23
The irony behind Guiltless is in the near-universal complicity of humans in the climate crisis. It’s familiar enough thematic ground for Josh Graham, who’s been sounding a tragically-still-relevant environmentalist alarm at least since his days with Red Sparowes in the mid-aughts, never mind the work he’s done with A Storm of Light in that regard. Or, you know, his art.
Guiltess is a new band that brings Graham together with Intronaut‘s Sacha Dunable, as well as fellow A Storm of Light alumni, guitarist Dan Hawkins and drummer Billy Graves, and they’re streaming one of the four tracks from their debut EP, Thorns, now ahead of a Feb. 23 release through Neurot Recordings.
Angular contemplations of riff and time, aggressive vibes put to despondent use. “All We Destroy” is also the name of a Grayceon record that once upon a time made my life way better, but from Graham and company it becomes a churning, angular insistence, dense in low end, sprawling and bleak.
If you were on board with A Storm of Light, there’s little barrier to entry here apart perhaps from a grimness of mood, but one would hardly call that unjustified given the subject matter. It used to snow in December here in New Jersey where I live. Now we get rain in January. Let’s all go fill our gas tanks and see what happens.
From the PR wire:
GUILTLESS: New Band From A Storm Of Light, Intronaut, Generation Of Vipers, Battle Of Mice Members To Release Thorns Debut February 23rd On Neurot Recordings; “All We Destroy” Single + Preorders Posted
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, February 23rd on 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 GUILTLESS’ “All We Destroy” at THIS LOCATION and find the song on all streaming services now.
Thorns will be released on CD, cassette, and digital formats through Neurot Recordings on February 23rd, 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: https://neurotrecordings.ffm.to/thorns_ep
Thorns Track Listing:
1. Devour-Collide
2. All We Destroy
3. Dead-Eye
4. In Radiant Glow
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