Album Review: Guilt Trip – Severance (via MLVLTD)

Mancunian’s Guilt Trip are here with a brand new album, due for release on September 22nd. As a big fan of Guilt Trip I was instantly excited for this album seeing it, and am very onboard for a review. 

Guilt Trip waste no time in getting to the nitty gritty, it’s labeled with squeals and plenty of blast beats to make any classic hardcore kid happy. Following up with that very quickly are some war drums and a lofi riff, a pit starter in the making. Finished up by a quick “come on!” Second song in and there’s already a two step beat, and I can’t say I’m not grinning. This shit makes me want to go see em’ live even more! I can certainly imagine myself being “Surrounded by Pain.”

Third track “Eyes Wide Shut” wastes absolutely no time, it’s in your face and meant to be causing fights. “Sweet Dreams” is chuggy, noisy and has lots of tasty guitar fills. Going straight from that into a circle pit opener and straight back down. Guilt Trip even experiment with some clean singing in between quick riffs. Having Florent Salfati (of French Metal-core act Landmvrks) on a Guilt Trip track was never something I expected but it is SO welcome. His verse is short and sweet, my only complaint is it wasn’t longer!

Fifth effort – “Reaching Paradise” is the shortest track on the album, coming in just under 2 minutes. It’s a much softer track, whilst still holding onto that Guilt Trip sound. It’s clear they want to branch out but they somehow seem sort of scared to? I wish they’d let these ideas they clearly have run wild. However it serves to set up the next track VERY well. This is energy encapsulated into a song, this one absolutely WILL go off live. Quick jabs here and there make up this track. 

Seventh track Broken Wings just over the halfway mark, is a show of Guilt Trip’s more interesting guitar writing. It has that unrivalled Guilt Trip sound but with a bit more of that technicality. Very good stuff.

Track eight “The Gates” is simply put fucking great. It’s beatdown, it’s got pinch harmonics, it’s got stupid stops and starts and bouncy palm mute sections. It’s my bread and butter, I can’t complain. I thought next track “Sancitifed” would struggle to follow that one but I was pleasantly surprised, it has sections of clean singing which I really enjoy as a change, because I feel like on a track of 12 vaguely similar sounding hardcore tunes you can and will get burnt out on the sound. Whilst you might’ve loved track one, you might not be so keen around the track 10 mark. “Sanctified” manages to stave off that burnout and I’m massively keen on it. 

Track 10 is more of that ‘letting the ideas run wild’ thing I was going on about earlier, I’m massively keen on it. It’s good stuff and I’m excited to see them be doing a bit of different stuff whilst never letting that classic Guilt Trip sound go. 

Penultimate Track “Severance” is not taking no for an answer, it’s picking you up and slamming you through the closest table and then two stepping on your lifeless body. Also, lovely bass tone Guilt Trip. 

Final track is an acoustic sort of ballad, it’s very pretty and you sort of come to expect a slower ‘sadder’ sounding song when bands do full metal albums. I like it, but I like sending things off with a bang, why have like, 10 tracks of pure carnage and then let the energy die at the finish line? It’s not bad by any means, I’m just being a picky little wanker. 

All in, good stuff GT. I like your album a lot. Did you like it? Let us know with the user rating feature below. 

Guilt Trip – Severance – Full Tracklisting

1. Fallen At My Feet
2. Surrounded By Pain
3. Eyes Wide Shut
4. Sweet Dreams (Ft. Florent Salfati)
5. Reaching Paradise
6. Tearing Your Life Away
7. Broken Wings
8. The Gates
9. Sanctified
10. Hell Will Replace the Rain
11. Severance
12. Dusk

Links

PRE-ORDER