Posted in Whathaveyou on March 4th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Following on from the late-January release of their debut album, Regeneration (review here), New-York-and-then-some-based post-metallic earthscorchers Guhts today announce a round of Spring touring to support the record. The East Coast run takes begins in Philadelphia April 15 and concludes on a back-northbound swing April 24 after a drive from Richmond (not nothing; hope you like I-95), hitting Arlene’s Grocery the final night. There’s one TBA, and I’m honestly not sure if they have a show for it or not, but if you’re somewhere between Birmingham and Richmond — Charlotte, NC, maybe? Knoxville, TN? — and you’ve got a stage and can put the band up for an evening, you could tick your I-did-a-good-thing-today box early by at least asking if you can help out. I’ve talked to Scott Prater and Amber Burns before. They’re pretty friendly.
The record, on the other hand, tends the other way. Channeling its emotive crux in the latter’s vocals as well as the sometimes willfully caustic, weighted-even-in-its-quiet-parts sprawl behind her, Regeneration gets furious but isn’t reliant on anger or aggression at its core. And where 2021’s debut Blood Feather EP (review here) felt like the beginning of an exploration because it very definitely was, the sense of command throughout Regeneration — even unto those parts where they seem to be letting the songs go where the songs want instead of where they want them to go, maybe especially in those parts — is striking. Guhts know what they want to do sound-wise, likewise raw and mindful. They did it in the studio (with Andy Frickin’ Patterson, no less). Now they’ll do it at shows in cities most of which they haven’t hit before. If still reading and you’re the type to show up, it would be advisable.
Dates follow:
GUHTS – Regeneration Spring Tour 2024 April 15 Century Philadelphia, PA April 16 The Crown Baltimore, MD April 17 Monstercade Winston Salem, NC April 18 The Odd Asheville, NC April 19 Atlanta Utility Works Atlanta, GA April 20 Muddy River Madness Vicksburg, MS April 21 True Story Brewing Birmingham, AL April 22 TBA April 23 Banditos Richmond, VA April 24 Arlene’s Grocery New York, NY
GUHTS are: Amber Burns – Vocals Scott Prater – Guitar & Synth Daniel Martinez – Bass Brian Clemens – Drums
Posted in Reviews on February 5th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
After a well-received 2021 EP, Blood Feather (review here), announced their arrival, New York’s Guhts offer post-metallic cohesion and emotive visceralia throughout their debut album at a level such that they might need to add another ‘g’ to their name: “Gughts.” At 46 minutes and seven songs, with “White Noise” (8:24) and “The Wounded Healer” (10:13) bookending the ambitious collection, Regeneration arrives scorching the ground behind and/or in front of it, a willful kitchensinkery of piano, strings and synth from guitarist Scott Prater finding a balance between conveying overwhelm and actually being overwhelming. The album immediately puts vocalist Amber Burns in a class of singer able to be emotive, harsh or gentle in her delivery, the gnashing and screaming of one measure often giving over a melodic croon or some semi-spoken poetry recited with marked force and presence. With Brian Clemens on drums and Daniel Martinez on bass, Regeneration casts Guhts as all-in.
There’s very little that feels like it’s being held back throughout, and that too is on purpose, but it’s not to say Guhts want for dynamic. The fact that the band traveled to Salt Lake City to work with producer Andy Paterson (The Otolith, Iota, ex-SubRosa, and so many others but those would be enough) feels emblematic generally of their commitment to the sonic progression being set forth in “White Noise” as Guhts position themselves in aesthetic conversation specifically with the Julie Christmas-fronted Battle of Mice, who put out one of post-metal’s best records ever in 2006’s A Day of Nights (discussed here) before dissolving, and SubRosa, whose final two albums found a balance between heft and float, beauty and darkness, that seems to inform Regeneration all the more with Paterson helming. Not so much in the airy guitar and half-whispers of “Til Death,” which feels more Honor Found in Decay-era Neurosis in its not-languid gradualism. Through “White Noise” and “Til Death,” which is about half as long, as well as the subsequent “The Mirror,” which like “Handless Maiden” and “Eyes Open” still to come is a redux from the EP.
Fewer experiments could be more revealing as regards the jump Guhts have made from Blood Feather to Regeneration than to listen to “Eyes Open” from the former and the latter back to back. What the band now calls a demo was made with the lineup of Burns, Prater and guitarist/synthesist Dan Shaneyfelt before the live incarnation of Guhts existed is cast as primitive by the fully realized churn of Regeneration‘s “Eyes Open,” keyboard bringing melodic punctuation to a progression that reveals itself as born out of Panopticon-style Isis but full in its arrangement in a way that band could never have been thanks in no small part to the all-over-it performance throughout from Burns. If the aforementioned Julie Christmas and Rebecca Vernon (now of The Keening, ex-SubRosa) are stylistic progenitors here, Burns takes up that physically-exhausting-sounding mantle — I mean that literally; her vocals come across like the kind of full body delivery that would make you tired after; need to go sit somewhere quiet when the set’s done and that kind of thing — with due passion and what Sourvein once called a ‘will to mangle.’
It is a stunning effort specifically for Burns, but her voice is just a part of the world being made throughout these songs, and even as “White Noise” shifts into its sweeter hook line about something keeping you from yourself (I took the ‘white’ in “White Noise” to be a kind of antifascist stance, and right on, but I realize in saying that I haven’t seen a lyric sheet to conform that or not), or the three-and-a-half-minute string-laced centerpiece “Handless Maiden” brings Guhts to perhaps their most weighted, impact-rumbling churn in the dug-in intensity of its first minute-plus, only to reveal at that point a backed-off-whatever-ribbon-mic-was-used-probably-so-it-didn’t-break, blown-out vocal from Burns that helps move the track from what might’ve been another part of a longer piece like “The Wounded Healer” into a standout in its own right that offers something distinct from the rest of the album at whose core it rests. It becomes crucial to the proceedings and an important part of the atmosphere on the whole, its structural shift serving notice of Guhts‘ expanded and hopefully still expanding creative reach while staying consistent in tone and general volatility of mood in volume.
The tremolo in “Handless Maiden” is well suited to the harsher spirit of the song, and “Eyes Open” brings another change with a more open feel en route to “Generate,” the semi-title-track, which feels willing to be hypnotic, to reside in its component sections, in a way that feels like growth. Textures of guitar and a more straightforward melodic vocal give the listener a sense of peace, however momentary in the song’s seven-minute run, maybe with Prater backing on vocals (?) as it moves into the shouts and intensity of the build across its second half, the noisy finish fading to silence ahead of chimes (or synth, etc.) to note the arrival at “The Wounded Healer.” A mellower verse reveals the transitional nature of “Generate,” though the tension holds firm throughout the first minute and a half before the explosion hits at 1:52, the band smoothly shifting to more consuming volume and crash — the cymbals on Regeneration want to eat you — before the march through the middle around the melancholy lead guitar and midtempo lumber take over, vocals restrained and brooding for now, waiting to lash out as they inevitably do.
“The Wounded Healer,” like “Generate” before it, splits at the halfway point and finishes with memorable repetitions of the phrase “Silence my heart” that build up, are complemented by percussion/strings making them feel that much rawer by comparison, caustic and insular, an implosion collapse. It’s a grand, final letting-loose, Burns‘ vocals owning the foreground with willfully unbridled layering adding to chaotic feel of culmination, the crashing behind almost cinematic. Peaking around 6:30, they finish in a sustained wash with a return to melody (ultimately partial), the message coming through that they haven’t revealed totality of their sound yet and that, ambitious as Regeneration is, their creative drive is growing no less than their sound. I won’t hazard to predict Guhts‘ future or how their personality and individualism might continue to manifest in their output — where they’re headed, in other words — but Regeneration is noteworthy for the clarity of its vision and the abiding sense of purpose brought to its expression and urgency. which are particularly resonant from a debut but would be impressive in any context.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 27th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The coming of a debut album by partially-New York-based outfit Guhts has been long foretold by, well, the band, for one. Begun as a pandemic-born offshoot of Witchkiss, the 2021 EP Blood Feather (review here) provided an introduction to the new project’s heavier-than-you-usually-think-of-heavygaze and industrial-informed nod, and as they’ve undertaken a couple tours in the time since, they’re only more ready in my mind for the task ahead of them. Regeneration is out Jan. 26 through New Heavy Sounds and a US CD issue on Seeing Red Records.
You can — and if you’re still reading, you probably should — stream the first single, “Til Death,” at the bottom of this post. If nothing else, it’s a reminder of why you (by which I mean I) have been looking forward to this album for the last two-plus years. The cover art and the song are below, along with the tracklisting and preorder links, because that’s how we do on a Monday. We do thoroughly.
From the PR wire, or socials, or somewhere:
New York-based GUHTS (pronounced ‘guts’) declare themselves to be an ‘avant-garde post-metal project, delivering larger than life sounds through, deeply emotional music’. For sure those aspirations are amply delivered in the form of their debut album ‘Regeneration’
Musically ‘Regeneration’ is a powerful and intense series of songs, topped off by some seriously powerhouse and expressive vocal performances.
It’s slow-moving chords, moving like sheets through sludge.
High guitar lines above, ranging from piercing and shimmering to nasty. Drums pound but not without groove.
There are strings, pianos and synths widening the palette.
Atmospheric sludge, Metalgaze, maybe, but there’s also that link to the New York Noise lineage from The Velvets and Sonic Youth, becoming a type of post-hardcore in the process, while gaining a connection to metal partly due to the sheer heaviness. A raft of creative experimentation that pushes beyond the realm of post-metal.
And then of course, the very first thing that hits you is Amber Gardner’s unbelievable, hypnotising vocals – as scary as a banshee while also intimate and persuasive.
Of the album, vocalist Amber says, ‘Regeneration symbolizes the power of self-renewal. Through regeneration, change becomes empowering, allowing new facets to emerge. It’s a courageous, transformative process, inspiring others to overcome fear.’
In short ‘Regeneration’ is a bold and startling debut, that will reward and enthral listeners the deeper they delve into its many layers.
