Listen Exclusively Here To Gridfailure’s Newest Manic Noise Desolation

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to peer out of a foxhole and look across a wasteland covered in filth that used to be, say, your neighborhood? If you have pondered doomsday, you’re in luck. Gridfailure offer a take on a catastrophe that we can’t fully see but is only getting closer via their February 15 Nefarious Industries release Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery I, and we’ve exclusively got a glimpse into the madness this week.

The title track from the record — available to stream below — offers a deeply unsettling, foreboding look into reality we might otherwise ignore, consciously or not. A portion of the record’s material apparently first emerged during the massive Hurricane Sandy that rocked areas including the Northeastern United States back in 2012, leaving tens of billions of dollars worth of damage, hundreds dead including across the U.S., and millions upon millions affected in one way or another. That dark shadow underscores the territory that “Sixth Mass-Extinction Skuduggery I: Survivor’s Remorse” deals with.

The piece opens with haunting vocals from To End It All’s Joy Von Spain before launching into a relentless build into misery driven by a straightforward musical undercurrent that’s been mangled before it reaches the listener. Some prominent elements at work here at one point no doubt sounded familiarly pleasant — or at least could be taken that way — but now, they’ve been sent through a sonic hell of our own making. That immersive hellish feeling pervades the track to the point of not being easily dismissed — it’s as if it sneaks up on the listener’s back and sinks its claws, then marches them right off the edge into a very tangible madness.

In other words, the track quickly proves quite a standout experience. It’s not just a soundtrack to your worst nightmares — it’s a soundtrack for when your worst nightmares come true.

The album the piece sits on is the first of a series, all of which will drop via Nefarious Industries. Planned titles include Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery II and III, Teeth Collection, and Drought Stick, the latter two of which document “random stories from the final days of the human species,” according to the outfit’s mastermind David Brenner.

Check out an exclusive taste below: