There’s something to be said for bands that send a terrified chill down your spine. It once worked for me watching Behemoth at Download, eating a mac and cheese as diabolical as the ceremonial candelabrum that adorned the stage, trying and failing to rid a callous post-emo karaoke hangover. Then again, Nergal’s blasphemous display is the whole thing–an unapologetic display of Satanic belief, with the sound to boot—which stretches so far beyond corpse makeup and Phrygian scales. Even more impressive, perhaps, is being convincingly evil seemingly without much effort. Just like Austin’s Portrayal Of Guilt.
It’s hard to find a sound as ice-cool as what emanates from Matt King’s guitar (now armed with an aluminium-necked Tele, sounding like if the Night King decided to perform basement shows), James Beveridge’s lightning blasts and a dreaded growl from Alex Stanfield’s bass. Initially seeing them open for Deafheaven and Touché Amoré proved such; an immense fright coming from a trio that looked like art school students, but ingratiated into various DIY scenes having released early splits with now-booming Chat Pile, and eventually getting pg. 99’s vocalists on features. In a roundabout way they’re ‘post-blackened-nu-skramz’, or as King puts it modestly, “we play fast I guess,” and “I don’t know how to play guitar, I just do it.” It all underplays the perfection intersection of genres they portray, and continue to branch further out from since debut record Let Pain Be Your Guide.
There’s been a hell of a lot of activity in the Portrayal Of Guilt camp in the intervening years––as a band, and also a label. 2021’s back-to-back records We Are Always Alone and CHRISTFUCKER were just about as sublime as heavy music could get this side of the decade, followed by a remix record and the orchestra-siding experiment Devil Music. Their path seems to be ‘get louder, get weirder, get better’, and they do deliver more than one of those on …Beginning Of The End, even though it features, for want of better words, more ‘accessible’ song-y songs you so often find a decade into a band’s career. Not that any party would become a dancefloor hearing King’s undead-sounding vocal or the ominous chimes of The Sixth Circle (even though it should).
Thinking of CHRISTFUCKER’s intro, this album opening is relatively similar. Backstabber takes the ominous Sabbathian tri-tone announcement-style riff, adds Beveridge’s groovy drums, and gives us the relentless whiplashing of the tried and true POG-style on Heaven’s Gate. But sandwiched between is single Human Terror, utilising the disquieting effect of space, and a more rounded sound from the mixing of the masterful Will Yip. It’s still totally wicked, where the intensive pogoing effect of Under Siege sees just how subterranean the group gets, locking into a rhythmic pulse you don’t believe could wade further into muck, until it does, and it’s righteous.
From there, the darkened worldbuilding is complete, and …Beginning Of The End swerves. Ecstasy’s looped beats and Wes Borland leads are a bit Significant Other-era Bizkit in its verses, continuing to slap you with walls of caustic noise. The rap-metal excursions do not end there, with Slim Guerrilla appearing on horrorcore interlude Chamber Of Misery Pt. IV. The spoken word of God Will Never Hear Me and grungy number Object Of Pain also seem close to in-vogue alternative music if it wasn’t absolutely coated in POG’s living, breathing black paint. Pure stomper Death From Above similarly sets up a Nine Inch Nails prospect, and evolves with every little section: the simplistic main chorus riff is massive, the background guitar flourishes a delight, and Beveridge goes mad on the double-kick bridge. All over, King’s guttural shrieks are beautifully inhuman, with this and closer The Last Judgement giving it its due spotlight.
As the name suggests, the record sets out to define a downfall, a slip into an unbreachable chasm. That’s exactly it in aural form, through a thematically well-sequenced and proudly left-field release the band are becoming so great at doing. These days, you expect every release as an intentional veering outside of the POG orbit, yet retaining their signature flavour. They’re a group fascinated with just what else they can make sound evil. Most listeners should also be fascinated with that goal too when the result is this good.
For fans of: The Body, Godflesh, Full Of Hell
‘…Beginning Of The End’ by Portrayal Of Guilt is released on 24th April on Run For Cover Records.
Words by Elliot Burr
