Australia’s progressive music specialists Wild Thing Records recently welcomed Melbourne post-traumatic prog-death metal three piece, Growth, to their label roster. The band plan to release a trilogy of albums, through Wild Thing Records, that explore the very human aspects of connection, trauma, despair, and the fragility of hope.
The first single from Growth, Something Follows, set the scene of what is to come. The song’s character in a state of despair, forced to reach a decision to either collapse, or make one last push to break through.
Now with new single, Cigarette Burns, our character is in a state of reflection. Do they continue to suffer and let their hell consume them?
Cigarette Burns opens in a wash of menacing feedback that immediately brings on a sense of forbiding anxiety for the listener, who is then dragged through this story of descent and pummelled into submission. The landscape presented by what follows is the stuff of nightmares. Dense with jarring time signatures, full of grinding abrasiveness courtesy of some truly twisted guitar playing that is also at times juxtaposed wistful post-metal passages. All led by the visceral howling of frontman Luke Frizon who’s immersive detailing of this vivid story of hope and loss is drawn directly from lived experience…
The band says: “Cigarette burns leave a mark to remember. It’s also a term in cinema for special markers in a roll of film- they let the projectionist know it’s time to change the rolls over, to continue the show. It seems to make sense to reflect on our wounds, so we do it with abandon. We dwell on traumas, invite our ghosts to play out their horrors in front of us in circular fashion, until those circles are spinning so viciously their edges cut us into pieces. It’s no life to live.
It’s time to change the film.”
Luke (Frizon – frontman) says of the music video: “We’re thrilled to have worked with Adrian Goleby for this clip, he’s got fantastic skills and a great sense of vision. The clip itself features a bunch of our good mates from the very cool band Hadal Maw. One of our members decided to dislocate his knee a few hours into the weekend-long shoot… That member was me. I don’t think much was achieved by this but I stand by my decision.”
Listen to Something Follows & Cigarette Burns and also pre order / pre-save The Smothering Arms of Mercy here: smarturl.it/growthmercy
Watch the video, directed by Adrian Goleby of Caligula’s Horse, here
