Breaking down »Virtue And Industry« EP with industrial sludge duo The Malefic Grip!

Bristol, UK based noisy industrial sludge duo The Malefic Grip has just released their new EP »Virtue And Industry« on December 6th, 2024.

Tracklist:
01. A Nice Guy
02. Death By A Thousand Cunts
03. Unnatural Selection
04. Blank Masses
05. The Swarming

Bristol’s The Malefic Grip has emerged from the shadows once again to unleash »Virtue And Industry«, a raw and punishing five-track EP that fuses blown-out sludge riffs with hammering synthetic drums, all wrapped in a hazy layer of eerie synths and samples.

To mark their new release, the duo, comprised of vocalist/guitarist Helen Kinsella and vocalist/bassist Liam S. Wolf, recently took some downtime from the industrial sludge assembly line to review processes and breakdown »Virtue And Industry« piece by piece.

A Nice Guy:

Liam: This track came about when I was just messing about running samples through a synth program and testing out a new midi controller. The end result had a satisfyingly sinister feel. The voice samples are from interviews taken after the Stanford Prison Experiment. I thought they fitted the mood, and the general theme of abuse of power resonated quite well with other tracks on the EP, so we thought it made a very suitable introduction.

Death By A Thousand Cunts:

Helen: I wanted to write something with a really minimal drum beat, kind of Big Black style. The wonky guitar part over the top gave it a bit of a post punk sound – a definite departure from the big doomy riffs I usually come up with. I had no idea what Liam had in mind for vocals but the dual vocal idea just tied everything together really well. It’s definitely one of the songs I’m most proud of and I think it makes a pretty good single to showcase our change in direction.

Liam: I already had the title and quite a few of the lyrics scribbled down in my notes. When Helen sent me the music I knew that it’s aggressive but off kilter feel would fit those words perfectly. It’s not our most subtle song thematically… It’s just galling how our political class is made up almost entirely of morons, madmen, and mediocrities. A modern dark age, a capitalistic twist on feudalism. Yuck, basically.

Unnatural Selection:

Helen: Unnatural Selection is one of the first songs that we rehearsed as a band when I joined Grip back in 2017. That was when we were a 4-piece then and it had far more stoner groove going on at the time. I always loved that guitar line that snakes its way through the verses. I think the form this track has taken now really fits the devastation of Liam’s lyrics. You almost feel the song tear itself apart as it reaches it’s end, which makes it a great set closer too.

Blank Masses:

Liam: This song started as an entirely synth based tune I wrote probably 14 years ago. I forgot about it entirely, then when I rediscovered it I realised that it could be perfect for Grip. It’s about alienation, about feeling utterly unconnected to anyone or anything around. A feeling of otherness so strong you doubt everything you truly feel. Is the isolation part of your own sickness, or are you the last bastion against a contagion that has claimed everything else? I feel like it makes a good one-two punch with »Unnatural Selection« anyway.

The Swarming:

Liam: Musically this song started when I was messing around with samples of a piano, which I then put effects on, reversed, then cut up into pieces and shuffled about to form an entirely new melody. Lyrically it’s a reaction into the degree to which demonising asylum seekers, some of the most desperate, most powerless people in the world, has become absolutely mainstream. It’s disgusting, actual monsters pointing to someone else and claiming that they are the danger. It starts with words that spread like hellfire until all humanity is ashes. Treating others as inhuman, burning all humanity from yourself in the process.

»Virtue And Industry« is now available from The Malefic Grip Bandcamp.

Keep up to date with the ‘Grip HERE.

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well