Gridfailure’s music is a prime example of dark experimentation. On the one-man project’s latest EP, Hostile Alchemy, Gridfailure harnessed the destructive and confusing emotions of the 2016 election cycle.
“Hostile Alchemist” gets inside your head. There’s no abrasive walls of noise or bombastic drumming. Instead, a collection of instruments and field recordings partner with muddy vocals for the less-abrasive but still-chilling experiment you hear below. A feeling of mounting pressure runs throughout the entirety; “Hostile Alchemist” could have been unceremoniously yanked from a nightmare or the darkest corners of your imagination.
“Hostile Alchemist,” a somewhat defining specimen of the horror and dementia formulated in the Gridfailure Compound, features guest vocals from Leila Abdul-Rauf (Vastum, Ionophore, Cardinal Wyrm), synth from Jeff Wilson (Wolvhammer, Abigail Williams, Chrome Waves), and accordion from Benjamin Levitt (Megalophobe), meshed into the toxic layers of vocals, bass, guitar, synth, keys, xylophone, Theremin, percussion, electronics, and more from creator David Brenner.
Gridfailure’s Hostile Alchemy delivers nine tracks conceived in the final weeks of the 2016 election cycle in protest to the current misinformation-fueled politics driving the true threat of a global nuclear holocaust. In addition to suffocating layers of instrumentation and vocals by the outfit’s solo curator, David Brenner (ex-Theologian, ex-Heidnik), Hostile Alchemy features guest contributions from a wide cast of allies including Leila Abdul-Rauf (Vastum, Ionophore, Cardinal Wyrm), Mark Deutrom (Bellringer, ex-Melvins), Jeff Wilson (Wolvhammer, Abigail Williams, Chrome Waves), Faith Ciavarella, Pete Tsakiris, Benjamin Levitt (Megalophobe), Christian Molenaar (Those Darn Gnomes), Alexei Korolev (The Company Corvette), and more.
Hostile Alchemy will be digitally released March 24. Preorder it here.
