Uniform + Portrayal of Guilt

407 Central Ave. NW,Albuquerque NM 87102

31 October, 2021

Description

Uniform + Portrayal of Guilt Sister presents 21+ Uniform, Portrayal of Guilt Body Void Spend Halloween night at Sister with Uniform + Portrayal of Guilt and Body Void! UNIFORM Following the release of critically acclaimed LP Wake in Fright, which had two songs featured in the new season of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, it was time for Uniform vocalist Michael Berdan and instrumentalist Ben Greenberg to return to the studio. The duo decided to up the ante and add a third member to help perfect their vicious post-industrial dystopian cyber-punk. After some deliberation, Greenberg called upon drummer Greg Fox (Liturgy, Zs) to help round out the sound they were looking for. Using a mix of triggered samples and real drums along with layered synths and good old electric guitar, the trio arrived at what would become The Long Walk after only a few short days in the studio. From the opening whirr of the title track, it’s clear that the band is onto something special. Recorded in Strange Weather studios in the first part of 2018, The Long Walk is eight new tracks by the duo of Greenberg and Berdan, incorporating Fox’s skills behind the drum kit to add an entirely new dimension to the signature Uniform sound. Ditching sequenced tracks, Greenberg opted for single takes to highlight the Frankenstein-like guitar-bass-synth hybrid that oozes throughout the recording. Meanwhile, crushing guitar thunder is punched up by Fox’s masterful drumming while Berdan’s cries from the nether feel more desperate and morose than ever. This is Uniform at its most bleak, emotional, and powerful. Lyrically, The Long Walk deals with paradoxes in spirituality and organized religion. Growing up in a devout Irish Catholic household in an Irish Catholic neighborhood, Berdan went to Catholic school for most of his primary education, and even was an altar boy. Fear of Biblical hell and damnation felt tangible. As Berdan grew and matured emotionally, he began to reject Catholicism bit by bit, viewing the church as a judgmental, repressive people who choose to live their lives dictated by hateful, fear-mongering dogma. In the recent past, Berdan found himself slowly reconnecting with his Catholic background, observing how the faith that he found so repressive served as a great source of comfort and strength for so many. Eventually, Berdan began to view at the root of Catholicism and all major world religions a practice of love, tolerance, peace, and altruism. He began identifying as Catholic again, finding that basic tenets to be good guiding principles for daily life. Yet therein lay the contradiction that drove him from religion in the first place — many of the human traditions of the church also dealt in repression, intolerance, and bigotry, and some of mankind’s most hateful acts have been carried out in the name of God. Could one observe the rituals and practice of a faith while acknowledging and rejecting its ugliest elements? The title The Long Walk comes from a Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) dystopian novel about an oppressive government that forces some of its children to endure a grueling game where there is only one survivor. In this case, it’s an allegory for an extended march away from comfort, family, and faith, and eventually into an amorphous sense of spirituality that can be understood on a personal level. PORTRAYAL OF GUILT To say Portrayal of Guilt write grim songs is an understatement. Since forming in 2017, the Austin trio has been a flowing fountain of fatalism, spewing harsh and brutal sentiments across their releases. Now, on their second album, We Are Always Alone, the band turns the nihilism inwards and explores the notion of eternal isolation. We Are Always Alone was written and recorded ahead of schedule. In March, Portrayal of Guilt was on tour in Atlanta when they realized the looming COVID-19 was about to render the remainder of their dates unsustainable. They packed up and drove home, where they immediately got to work crafting and recording nine new tracks with producer and frequent collaborator Phillip Odom, with mastering by Grammy nominated engineer Will Yip. The album boasts vocal cameos from Matt Michel and Chris Taylor of Majority Rule and pageninetynine, two seminal bands to whom Portrayal of Guilt has often been deemed the heir apparent. The album sees the band continuing to perfect their gritty style of charred punk that seamlessly fuses together a broad array of styles, from the piercing ferocity of screamo to the thick gnarls of black metal, underlined with chilling and ominous industrial samples. The LP is a climatic listening experience that never really lets the light peek through, instead building up to a cathartic final track that hammers home the bleak desolation that runs through it. We Are Always Alone comes off the heels of the band’s 2019 EP, Suffering Is a Gift, and their celebrated debut full-length in 2018, Let Pain Be Your Guide, which earned the band praise in outlets like NPR, Revolver, and Kerrang!. Even though it was birthed under the spectre of a global pandemic, it’s hard to argue that We Are Always Alone is any more dire than the rest of the band’s catalog. For a Portrayal of Guilt release, it seems par for the course. Uniform, Portrayal of Guilt Body Void