“Extinct to the dying world, crucified upside down.“
Confronting and explaining Gillian’s Carter latest record, Salvation Through Misery, to an outsider will make for quite the challenge. Any attempts to pigeonhole it into one genre will be futile as it frantically dances between post-hardcore, blackened noise, punk, metal and screamo. Its intensity and anguish running against the grain of a world that runs on optimism, so it’s not one that will make for watercooler talk. This essence to it gives it its appeal, the lifting back and expressing raw and intense emotions that are often sublimated and put on display as artistry.
Driving the project is vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Logan Rivera who is accompanied by Bob Caruso on bass and Tony Oriza on drums. With 2016’s Dreams Of Suffocation arguably being their strongest work to date and one that brought them deserve notoriety, it sits in an impressive discography that sees it latest addition come in the form of Salvation Through Misery. As many records did, it emerges from the hellscape of COVID, and dives into the emotions and experiences people endured during its ruinous years.
Salvation Through Misery is stark and sharp in its delivery and production, early track “Drowning in Poison (Looking for an Escape)” is a wall of sound that feels like having your face dragged through broken glass. The pitched almost witch scream-esque vocals with its lamenting bass line tear through the ears and deliver a harrowing experience that continues throughout the record. This continues on following tracks “The Pain of Being Awake” and “Forced into a World of Shit“, with the interlude of “Serene Landscapes of a Violent Utopia” offering up some much needed respite. With its lyrical content confessional and blunt, yelling “Screaming for mercy, I watched myself fail, Worthless” and “I can see the angel coming to take me away as my hands turn into dust.”
The record finds its strongest element in its riffs and these act as the spine of the record, in “Nothing Ahead of Us” they give an element for the ear to sit on and explore while the vocals deliver their devastation. While on earlier tracks “Drowning in Poison (Looking for an Escape)” give that tormenting sound to deliver a double blow of unnerving and unsettling sounds. There is no crescendo that allows the emotions to exit through the back door on closer “Watching a Friend Die“, as it continues to carve out a relentless experience that will leave listeners at the side of the road.
Across it’s 25 minute run-time, there is plenty to be experienced and indulged in with Salvation Through Misery. While it’s harsh nature will perhaps give it a limited appeal, those seeking Ligotti-esque nihilism in their music will find something here. While I cannot find little to fault with the record, it does perhaps feel lagging behind its peers in its impact. We have been graced with new material this year from Pale Ache, END and KEN Mode who have explored similar veins of thought and sound. The bar has been raised in the bleak-inducing world and this leaves Savlation Through Misery left wanting at times.
6.5/10
Salvation Through Misery is out this Friday, October 7th, and can be pre-ordered here.