Portrayal of Guilt – …Beginning of the End
Metal still loves a bit of heathen pageantry and shock theatrics, but some of the most evil sounds in extreme music of the past decade have been crafted by three more-or-less regular dudes from Austin. Since making their debut with a particularly abrasive strain of screamo with 2018’s Let Pain Be Your Guide, Portrayal of Guilt have honed their explosive surges of energy into the sound of pure malevolence, achieving peak of sonic misanthropy with 2021’s Christfucker. Yet in the context of heavy music, their greatest acts of transgressions are those moments in which they’ve extracted any proper metal or hardcore elements in their music in favor of Luciferian chamber strings on Devil Music or dancefloor darkness on the remix collection Christfucker II. It’s not enough toy weaponize their chosen aesthetic—which, it’s worth reiterating, includes album titles like Devil Music and Christfucker II. They spread their venom anywhere they see fit.
More stylistically diffuse than radically conceptual, …Beginning of the End applies the band’s endless pursuit of new configurations and opportunities for exploring new forms of abrasion on a set that offers their most diverse set of bruisers and brawlers. In the first four tracks alone, they’re in whiplash mode, transitioning from the ominous, understated “Backstabber” intro to the dirty bassline and Korn-inspired pummel of “Human Terror,” to the blistering blast of blackened skramz on “Heaven’s Gate,” to ironman challenge d-beat gallop on “Under Siege.” Taken as individual parts, each song feels like a necessary aspect of the unique blend that makes up Portrayal of Guilt, but when heard in a sequence, it reinforces just how versatile a force of sonic violence they’ve become.
The most dramatic shift on …Beginning of the End comes in the form of a more pronounced immediacy. In an interview with Treble, King said he’d realized “it would be very interesting if the band was writing pop style songs” and mused, “How far can we take this sound?” While there’s still a long way before Portrayal of Guilt start elbowing their way into Turnstile’s radio-friendly terrain, …Beginning is the band’s most accessible album by every measure, channeling their hostility into pummeling and climactic choruses on moments like “Human Terror” and the groove-metal riffs of “Total Black.” And on the single “Ecstasy,” they ride a breakbeat-driven noise rock verse into an industrial metal chorus that’s disarmingly melodic.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, Portrayal of Guilt’s embrace of melody doesn’t go hand in hand with a more optimistic outlook or, for that matter, a less apocalyptic one. Its landscape is scorched from God’s wrath—literal punishment for humanity’s own failure at preventing the planet from becoming its own kind of hell. (As you might imagine with any band with a record called Christfucker, Portrayal of Guilt are nonbelievers; it’s more God-as-kaiju than a prayer for retribution.) “Death from Above” puts more of a poetic spin in its description of a doomed mortal (“Nerves of corroded wire hold this body together“), while the anthemic, sensually sinister “Object of Pain” shifts its focus from vengeance to sins of the flesh, its chorus rising up into a Reznorian repetition of masochism: “I want to feel it on the inside.”
Though it might be a stretch to call …Beginning of the End vulnerable, it allows for more nuance than Portrayal of Guilt ever have, even when exploding into a Follow the Leader-style climax or crushing with industrial precision. It’s a curious paradox for an album that offers so much of so many different things—including, I should note, a guest appearance from Houston emcee and Raider Klan affiliate Slim Guerrilla. Portrayal of Guilt have the confidence to try it all and the aptitude to pull it off and still leave enough space between each violent bolt of vengeance from above.
Label: Run for Cover
Year: 2026
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Portrayal of Guilt : …Beginning of the End
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