Review Summary: The building crumbles and the smoke fills the air. This is where I belong.
Where lies the future of heavy music? Save from maybe post-metalcore - a term that still needs to go beyond Sputnikmusic's influence realm - few genres, or even subgenres, seem to have properly arisen to the spotlight in the past few years. On the contrary, many genres have indulged in polygamy, black metal being fused with sludge, hardcore punk, or powerviolence, the end goal being clear: create the most disgusting blend of violent music possible. Portrayal of Guilt have been wanting to come up with such a result since their first self-titled EP, and have only further enhanced the richness of their formula. Their first album,
Let Pain Be Your Guide, was a bleak and energized blackened hardcore/screamo piece that already delved into the bizarre relationship between pain and enjoyment.
Put simply,
We Are Always Alone is a consequential step up from the debut, unraveling more sheer force and power, while also displaying the vilest side of their musical spectrum. While black metal already constituted a fair share of their formula on their previous album, it has now taken on a greater role, at times leading the sonic charge like on "Masochistic Oath". Sludgy screamo and powerviolence still compose the majority of the violence at play, but Portrayal of Guilt seem to have decided to make their music nastier by taking more patience with it. "Anesthetized" sees a crunchy bass take the lead, constructing rhythmic loops from which drums and then guitar start to discharge their dissonance and brutality. Construction is key here, the band carefully choosing to let one sole instrument set the mood, slowly adding layers on top of layers, before letting it all explode into primal rage. These explosions also are better achieved than ever: the band's soundscape is ampler and more massive thanks to the wall-of-sound production, the musicians are more skilled than before, and, more generally, the songwriting has improved. What once was a succession of short, brutal bangers has become a suite of longer, more constructed tracks that prove Portrayal of Guilt is no one-trick pony band. "My Immolation" is the perfect example of this evolution, its clean vocals strikingly breaking the demonic screams' hegemony, before a discordant guitar plays, alone, a
ritornello whose repetition only increases its oppressive character.
This is thus a work of desperate sorrow, as both the music and the lyrics never let hope come forth long enough. This is a work of constant pain; a pain that can never disappear, be it through the help of religion or drugs. This is this extreme philosophy that differentiates Portrayal of Guilt from their peers. Some recent heavy juggernauts such as Rolo Tomassi have made a name for themselves by gracefully fusing the angelic and the diabolic, while Conjurer are less nihilistic, and Nuvolascura are calling for action. The lyrical apathy shown through all twenty-six minutes of
We Are Always Alone is the continuation of the masochism displayed on
Let Pain Be Your Guide: on that album, the gloom was energized to such a degree that it felt like the band was satirizing their own aesthetic. Three years later, there is no satire or irony to be found anymore. The three members are dead serious and seem to wallow in suicidal apathy. It's not that pain is to be your guide, it's that pain
will always be your guide, and you can do nothing about it. Portrayal of Guilt represent that new wave of heavy music, the one that neither hesitates to make all possible aesthetics its own, nor to hold the speeches least related to the current "bien-pensance". In a way, this is what we can only hope for the future of metal and hardcore: to further flourish by fusing all their parent influences, and by giving the stage to the most extreme human thoughts.
