Over the last decade, Portrayal of Guilt have solidified themselves as a pillar in the extreme underground music scene. With relentlessly consistent releases like 2023’s orchestral nightmare Devil Music, and year-round world touring with the likes of Deafheaven, Uniform and Pg. 99, POG have unquestionably carved their own path. Defying accurate categorization since formation, the three piece blends elements of black, death and nu metal with crust, screamo, powerviolence and hardcore, with the bands forthcoming LP …The Beginning of The End” continuing to further obscure genre lines. The band takes the unhinged discordance to the next level on album standouts “Ecstasy” and “Human Terror”, with KoRn-like guitar dissonance, punishing death metal lows, and haunting spoken passages confidently riding the line between Life is Peachy and Scum.
NØ MAN
“Will you die with your eyes open?”
Washington D.C.’s NØ MAN is a necessary and much-needed voice in modern hardcore. Formed in 2017, the four-piece punk band has been alchemizing the personal and the political from the jump. Composed of members from Majority Rule, the band’s current aims go hand-in-hand with their past, sonically and thematically.
Their latest album Glitter and Spit is the band’s third full-length LP, solidifying their furious hardcore into a weapon of a record. Singer Maha Shami has fully come into her own as a frontperson, snarling out the most vicious vocals of her career on “Poison Darts.” As the daughter of refugees, returning home to Palestine included witnessing first-hand the casual atrocities inflicted on her family. Though written before the current conflict’s boiling point, Glitter and Spit synthesizes the 70+ years of systemic violence carried out against Palestine and her own lived experiences. Glitter and Spit is a much-needed fire of an album, fueled by the anxieties and anger of the now, erupting in a cathartic inferno.
