Gilead Media has launched pre-orders for 3 new titles:
Couch Slut - Contempt LP
False - Hunger 7-inch
Less Art - Strangled Light LP
These pre-orders are running at the Gilead Media bandcamp page for North American customers, Dry Cough Records for UK customers, and Throatruiner / Deathwish for EU customers.
Pre-order N. America: https://gileadmedia.bandcamp.com/merch
Pre-order Mainland Europe: https://deathwishinc.eu/collections/gilead-media
Pre-order UK: http://www.drycoughrecords.com/artist/gilead-media
Gilead Media announces the July 28th release of Contempt, the second album by Couch Slut.
From Brooklyn, New York, Couch Slut shook the underground in 2014 with the release of its debut, My Life as a Woman. Stereogum called that album “engagingly smart and terrifyingly blunt” and pegged the sound as “a little bit Oxbow and a little bit Today Is the Day during the AmRep years… It’s catharsis through pain, both for the listener and the band. But it’s also smart in the way it sets expectations and subverts them.”
New album Contempt carries on in this fashion – Couch Slut’s savagery and intelligence are both in full effect, adding up to an album that thrills on two levels. Opening track “Funeral Dyke” sets the tone, with a skronking saxophone buried under a grimy, blackened, noise-rock blitz. Later in the song, a tambourine rattles along happily with the beat as vocalist Megan Osztrosits screams, “I will fuck you, now you’re dirt!”
Contrasts such as those on display in “Funeral Dyke” are what make Contempt the engrossing, dynamic affair that it is. The band’s foundation rests on the scorched earth between Unsane’s pounding NYC hate-rock and Darkthrone’s mournful metal, but Contempt is filled with surprises. The songs are peppered with odd instrumentation – the aforementioned saxophone and tambourine, as well as tuba, trombone, accordion, viola, and concert bells – and tend to begin on one path and end on another. A cold dirge erupts into a chugging thrashfest; a sludgy rocker slides into a wistful jam recalling Sonic Youth’s more tender moments.
A consistent force throughout the album is Osztrosits’ wild-eyed, hair-raising voice. Harsh and unsettling, every snarled word slashes at nerves. Atop the twisting, writhing, and rocking of guitarist Kevin Wunderlich, bassist Kevin Hall, and drummer Theo Nobel, her confessional lyrics paint horrific pictures of “anger, depression, terror, drug abuse, mental illness, violence, the surreal, longing, and loss.”
Gilead Media owner Adam Bartlett says this: “As a label that releases a fair amount of black metal, doom, and other varieties of ‘extreme music,’ the concept of visceral and transgressive art is nothing new to Gilead Media. But Contempt may stand as one of the most vicious and unnerving releases in the label’s history.”
Contempt was recorded by Couch Slut’s Kevin Wunderlich and former member Amy Mills. It was mixed by Caley Monahan-Ward (Extra Life, Voice Coils) and mastered by James Plotkin (Leviathan, Sumac).
The cover art was created by Leandro De Cotis, the artist behind the X-rated My Life as a Woman cover which sparked many discussions upon its release.
Sporting brains and brawn, Couch Slut makes music that punches the gut and stimulates the mind. Contempt’s harrowing version of rock reflects its hometown – dirty, dangerous, dazzling – and secures the band’s place in the line of great NYC documentarians, from Sonic Youth to Swans, from Unsane to Pyrrhon.
Lineup:
Megan Osztrosits – vocals
Kevin Wunderlich – guitar
Kevin Hall – bass
Theo Nobel – drums
Gilead Media is quite pleased to unveil a new recording from Minneapolis black metal group False.
The new EP shows the band expanding their skills by forcing themselves to write two new songs suitable for a 7-inch release, and as any avid listener knows, this stands in stark contrast to their usual style of long, winding movements. Each of the pieces contained on this EP are both under five minutes in length, but contain all the relentless fury expected of False.
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Adam Tucker at Signaturetone Recording in Minneapolis. Artwork by Stephen Wilson.
Available on clear red vinyl, black vinyl, and clear red w/black smoke (GLM subscription club / band exclusive color). A download code is included with the record.
Hear “Pessimism as Denial” at CLRVYNT: http://clrvynt.com/less-art-pessimism-as-denial/
Less Art is the alliance of brothers Riley and Ed Breckenridge of Thrice, Ian Miller and Jon Howell of Kowloon Walled City, and Mike Minnick of Curl Up and Die. On Strangled Light, these five veterans bash out their own new version of post-hardcore – “post-hardcore by post-youths” is how they cheekily describe themselves, but this music is dead serious. The musicianship is world-class; the perspective is world-weary; the sound is fresh and urgent and crackling with feeling.Strangled Light’s nine songs add up to a modern, muscular incarnation of the vibe set forth years ago by bands like Fugazi, Unwound, and Drive Like Jehu. Like those bands, Less Art rages – emotionally-charged and electrifying – yet also knows how to wield dynamics as a weapon. The lulls make the peaks even sharper.
Initially it was baseball that brought these musicians together: four-fifths of Less Art are the men behind baseball-themed hardcore band Puig Destroyer. Blasting through songs about bunting and stealing bases eventually led these four to want to start a “real” band – they enlisted Riley’s brother Ed and Less Art was born.
The band name might be lifted from a line in Hamlet, but ultimately it is raw emotion that drives this band. Using blunt phrases and the realest of tones, frontman Minnick sings of self-destruction on the micro and macro levels – candid lyrics address his personal demons as well as the collective deathwish leading all humanity to the brink. “Pessimism as Denial,” debuted today, plainly describes our species’ suicidal path: “We’re surrounded by prophets / Who think spilling their guts / Is the same thing as giving blood / We’ve eaten all the animals / We’ve burned down every tree / We’ve done so many wrongs… / This system doesn’t work / The world is better without us.”
Strangled Light was recorded and mixed by Kowloon Walled City frontman Scott Evans at Sharkbite Studios and Antisleep Audio, and mastered by Brad Boatright (Full of Hell, Mutoid Man) at Audiosiege.
Guest vocals on “Diana the Huntress” were delivered by Meghan O’Neill-Pennie (Super Unison, ex-Punch).
The cover art was created by Jacob van Loon, whose work adorned the cover of Explosions in the Sky’s The Wilderness album.
Strangled Light is a thrilling debut – an entirely new, relevant vision from five men carrying decades of experience between them. Stand by for news of the next live shows.
releases July 28, 2017
Ed Breckenridge – guitar
Jon Howell – guitar
Ian Miller – bass
Riley Breckenridge – drums
