Photo by Brian Karlsson

Nothing about “trainers”, the latest preview from They Are Gutting A Body of Water’s new album LOTTO, sounds especially concerned with making more digestible sounds now that the Philly underground experimental shoegaze outfit have linked up up with major indie label ATO Records to co-release the effort alongside frontman Doug Dulgarian’s Julia’s War imprint and Smoking Room. It’s sort of an inverse compliment to what their peers in Hotline TNT are doing at the moment in fleshing out the band to a proper four-piece with bassist Emily Lofing, guitarist PJ Carroll, and drummer Ben Opatut. If anything, not compromising to clean up the mess.

The live-to-tape approach feels all the more corrosive and hinders upon a hardcore onslaught throughout the listen. These added limbs help pull together the collision of fuzz into one frame, spanning a series of vaguely specific vignettes gathered from wandering through the morbid daze of daily life. “Treat death like a teacher’s pet / Walk down to the store,” Dulgarian sings. “Dawn spreads over dead sunsets / Glance back at the door.” From dust to dust, They Are Gutting A Body of Water just keep moving the chaos at their own genre-defiant pace.

Directed by: Ben Turok

They Are Gutting a Body of Water’s LOTTO will be released October 17th on ATO Records / Julia’s War / Smoking Room.