Over the course of three albums, Austin’s Glassing have made it their mission to remind us that their hometown is responsible for the reflective high-school-football-soundtracking post-rock of Explosions in the Sky and, more recently, the confrontational, demonic blackened screamo of Portrayal of Guilt. Yet after embracing the post-metal doom of their friends and mentors in Holy Fawn on 2021’s Twin Dream, their upcoming fourth LP From the Other Side of the Mirror sees the trio lean fully into the blackgaze and screamo factions of the equation, with lead single “Defacer” even bringing Deafheaven to mind.
After opening with 30 seconds of that more spacious instrumental post-rock sound, their new single “Circle Down” collapses into freaked-out, claustrophobic black metal reflecting vocalist Dustin Coffman’s solipsistic lyrics. “‘Circle Down’ is about cycles of seclusion and hyperfixation,” he shares. “I don't like going outside or really doing anything at all, so I tend to just erode alone in my room. If there isn’t a reason to leave, I won’t, so there will be days on end where I don’t even go outside and my music gives me something to obsess over.”
Of the music itself, he adds that “Circle Down” was the last composition on From the Other Side of the Mirror to come together. “[Guitarist Cory Brim] had this really cool beatdown riff that we wanted to integrate, and once we figured it out it quickly became one of our favorite parts of the record.”
Check out the music video for the track below, which was directed by Matt Darcy and Nich Huft and features the band shredding through the track. From the Other Side of the Mirror is out April 26 and will mark the band’s first release on The Ocean’s Pelagic Records. You can pre-order it here.
