New Orleans based heavy doom gaze trio, Guts Club have shared the title track to their upcoming album, CLIFFS/WALLS . Bringing to mind early Earth and Khanate recordings, the band uses unconventional instrumentation (and probably too many amps) to achieve a brutally crushing wall of sound with howling, anguished vocals.
Before the pandemic Guts Club played dark country with violent lyrics about butchers and murderers who dry their victims’ skin on the wall. During the pandemic, the band went through a few lineup changes, covered The Sopranos theme (The Fader called it “terrifying,”) and finally recorded an out-of-left-field experimental doom album.
Set for release on January 13, 2023, CLIFFS/WALLS marks a notable shift towards extreme, heavy music and post-metal. After the literal hell of the pandemic and widespread anti-queer and trans sentiment, Guts Club went even more dark. That violent and unsettling lyricism is finally running parallel with their music. Intensely cathartic but brutally crushing, the album’s title track, “Cliffs/Walls” is a great reintroduction to the weird world of Guts Club.
Here’s what the band had to say about the track:
“’Cliffs/Walls’ is a meditation on grief and how we navigate a world overflowing with extreme loss and devastation. Some of us let it pass through us, some leap directly into it, others fight it, violently, until we’ve surrounded ourselves with walls too brutal to overcome. There is no resiliency; it is just knot after knot of trauma that we can only attempt to loosen or avert.”
Hear what Decibel Magazine calls a “massive doom gaze wall of sound” below!
Stream the single “Cliffs/Walls” in Spotify
Stream the single “Cliffs/Walls” in bandcamp
‘CLIFFS/WALLS’ bandcamp pre-order
Guts Club has been releasing music, in various iterations, since 2015. Their debut album The Arm Wrestling Tournament was described by Paste as having “moments of poignancy.” Their second album, Shit Bug, was called “funny and gross and fucked” by the late, great Tiny Mix Tapes (RIP.) For their third LP, Trench Foot, The Sydney Morning Herald (not sure how the record got to them) said “Like Bob Dylan and Martha Wainwright, Baker’s vocals won’t be for everyone.” It did alright, though.
Since then, the band has gone through a lineup change and a notable shift towards heavy and experimental doom, noise, and post metal. With Ronna Sandoval (Coffinwolf Ultra) on drums and Alex Dimef (Student Driver) on second guitar, the lyrically dark violence of early Guts Club finally parallels the music.
The Sydney Morning Herald would definitely be bummed about the vocals, but for Baker and the band, they’re a cathartic release after these last few years of literal hell.
Guts Club is set to release CLIFFS/WALLS on January 13th 2023.
