Release Date: 26th January 2024. Record Label: New Heavy Sounds / Seeing Red Records. Formats: CD/DD/Vinyl
Regeneration - Tracklisting
1.White Noise 08:23
2.Til Death 04:46
3.The Mirror 06:22
4.Handless Maiden 03:30
5.Eyes Open 05:37
6.Generate 07:04
7.The Wounded Healer 10:12
Members
Amber Gardner - Vocals
Scott Prater - Guitar
Daniel Martinez - Bass
Brian Clemens- Drums
Review
Regeneration is the new album from New York Progressive Post-Metallers GUHTS (pronounced Guts) and it’s delightful and avant garde style of Prog Metal, Sludge Metal, Doom Metal and Psych Rock. There’s a weird sideline with Doomgaze or Shoegaze elements with GUHTS always thinking outside the box. The album doesn’t follow the same creative path of other Avant-Garde Metal bands with GUHTS adding a subtle slice of underground heaviness from the New York scene into their music.
Regeneration doesn’t follow or fit into a normal creative structure with GUHTS reliance on the unexpected with different Sludge/Post-Metal flows leaning into multiple levels of HEAVY sounds which draws upon bands such as Deftones, The Melvins, ISIS, Julie Christmas, Cult Of Luna and YOB. Though, GUHTS deliver their own emotionally charged style and highly provocative blend of aggressive Doomegaze tones with Amber’s eerie vocals that are a mixture of clean based vocals, growls and shrieks which Amber delivers with an intense delivery that leads the band to play epic progressive grooves that are quite violent at times.
There’s also a deep 90’s Grunge/Alt Metal atmosphere within this album which allows GUHTS to expand upon their Shoegaze/Doomgaze sounds that expertly soon becomes the dominant tool for the band to deliver their music with.
GUHTS deliver different styles of music throughout the album with each of the seven tracks having a different feeling, sound and flow to each other. The songs are all bound together by a sense of doom and despair with Amber’s vocals have a startling BANSHEE effect on the most violent parts of the album especially on tracks such as White Noise, Til Death, The Mirror and Generate being the main personal highlights for me.
GUHTS have a real storytelling and therapeutic effect within both the music and lyrics they’ve created for this album. The overall journey is quite downbeat but Regeneration also offers moments of pure uplifting bliss which you don’t initially realise at first. However, the message becomes ever more clearer with repeated listens especially within the epic standout out track The Wounded Healer.
Regeneration is one of the finest debut Avant-Garde based Post-Metal albums I’ve had the pleasure to experience for a long time. The album is pure, honest and most importantly bloody groundbreaking which can see GUHTS deliver on the premier Doom/Sludge/Post-Metal Live Stages sooner rather than later.
Words by Steve Howe
You can buy Regeneration on CD/Vinyl from the links below:
Vinyl/CD (Europe) from New Heavy Sounds
CD (USA) from Seeing Red Records
Links
Facebook | BandCamp | Instagram