Photo by Harper King

Lockslip is a new band featuring ENTRY frontwoman Sara G (no relation to Alex…,) and if you thought maybe there was no further threshold of intensit she could emote through hardcore distortion and metal blades, the five-piece — initially formed by guitarists TJ Jaeger and Nick Pinder before collecting bassist Enrique Isla-Eisenacher, drummer Noah Baxter, and G — asks you to reconsider that by going deeper into this bleak timeline with them on the lead single off their debut album, The Conversation.

“Living without grief / No memories / Agony is brief / Harmonious,” immolates Gregory on “Gray World” in a place that fantasizes neither being devoid of feeling pain but also not suffering from it either. Kindred to the metalcore extremism of Converge and Botch and the new surge of vein-popping metalcore screaming revivalism in the likes of Vein.fm / fleshwater offshoot Living Weapon, Holder, and I Promised the World, Lockslip understand that if you want to paint the picture as intensely dark and cold as possible, you need to hold nothing back in what brinks you test with a sound that teeters on the verge of collapse.

That’s punctuated by the listen’s final demands by noise experimentalist King Yosef, whose label, Bleakhouse, will release the album. “Put an end to this misery / Put me somewhere I can be / Beyond the anguish beyond the fear / Where I can watch it all just disappear.” And then everything shutters to black even though this elusive, almost-non-existent hue of gray would be preferred to erase it all.

Lockslip’s The Conversation will be released November 6th on Bleakhouse.