Portrayal of Guilt
…Beginning of the End
RUN FOR COVER

Formed in Austin in 2017, Portrayal of Guilt is a heavy-music trio that doesn’t fit neatly into any one category. Continually pushing the boundaries of hardcore, black metal, and screamo, the band immediately set themselves apart from their peers in any of those categories with their unique injection of subgenres like industrial noise, sludge, and emoviolence into their sound—a raw, textile soundscape that feels unpolished yet still anthemic which the group has previously perfected on projects like CHRISTFUCKER and their totalist chamber-pop experiment Devil Music.

On their latest album, …Beginning of the End, the band continues this experimentalist impulse as they push into new sonic territories within the frameworks of hardcore and metal, inserting flourishes of trip-hop, nu metal, and even Memphis rap into their aggressive package. Not only do they mine such sounds familiar to the turn of the millennium for song inspiration, they also tapped into this aesthetic for their “Human Terror” video, a clip that pays homage to the computer music visualizers of the era. It’s an interesting combination of new and old, as the lyrics of destruction and desolation don’t do much to paint a picture of the past as the escapist fantasy nostalgia tends to frame it as. Instead, Portrayal of Guilt collide the past and present into each other, imbuing …Beginning of the End with the futility and despair of the present day.

The record begins with a minute of sinister, liminal tones. You can hear a subtle nod to nu metal on “Backstabber,” with its off-kilter guitar and hi-hat recalling the track “Blind” from Korn’s self-titled debut. This instrumental intro is short and sweet, leading to the aforementioned “Human Terror,” an aptly terrorizing cut which also bears a certain nu metal influence. On “Ecstasy,” we get more of a trip-hop beat over hardcore vocals, like a heavier version of Massive Attack—an interesting combination that works as well as any the band has attempted in the past. It’s not often that you get to hear a song that’s both danceable and angry, but Portrayal of Guilt are able to do it easily. Even when they invite trap emcee Slim Guerilla to the proceedings, the group never strays too far from their core identity, as most lucidly heard on “Death From Above.”

…Beginning of the End is an interesting foray into aughts-era subgenres while carefully navigating away from any clichés that have made these eras fruitful sources of nostalgia lately. It’s angry and aggressive, everything that listeners have come to expect from Portrayal of Guilt—a heavier, more unpredictable take on familiar genres that always manages to sound new.

FLOOD

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MUSIC, ART + CULTURE,
DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX