(written by Islander)
On September 5th KingSide Records will release a new EP by the Danish metallic hardcore band Hard Lessons. It’s a six-track attack named Influx of Betrayal. One song from the EP (“Insufferable“) has already launched, and today Hard Lessons are releasing a second one, and we’re premiering a video for it just now.
The name of this new song, which features a guest appearance by No Grave, is “Gangrene“. In some ways it’s a sonic manifestation of infection, but it’s also a raging remedy for the rot.
As you probably know, gangrene is a type of tissue necrosis caused by a lack of blood supply. Flesh dies, discolors, becomes foul, becomes unsalvageable, falls away, or must be cut out.
The beginning of the Hard Lessons song sounds like that process of tissue death (though their concern is likely more about an increasingly gangrenous society). The feedback generates dismal and painful tones. The distorted instruments slowly gouge, pulsate, and writhe. And then the bludgeoning begins.
Still accompanied by bursts of shrill feedback, the riffing slashes and slugs with a jagged edge, the drums brutally jolt in unpredictable starts and stops, and the vocals rage in grit-slathered roars, howls, and screams.
The pace slows into a traumatic breakdown that’s even more brutally bludgeoning, and then ramps up into a hard-punching and maniacally churning finale. It’s not a long song, but long enough to leave a listener searching for hairline fractures and bruises turning yellow.
The video, created by bassist Casper (aka Pitfootage), combines footage from Hard Lessons shows and film from the road — and you can check it out now:
“Gangrene” is available on Spotify now via the link below:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7dasFu6knQ15TTSNk34OsA
For more info about Hard Lessons and the EP, check the links collected at this location:
https://linktr.ee/HardLessonsDKHC
Hard Lessons will celebrate the discharge of Influx of Betrayal with a September 5 release party at Metal In Forsamlingshuset in Gylling, Denmark, with special guests performing: Gravery from Italy; Chlorate from Hamburg, Germany; and from Denmark, the band’s friends in Hemispherectomy.
And lastly, we’re including a video for that previously released song off the EP, “Insufferable“, which features Becoming A.D.