Album Review: Guilt Trip - 'One By One'
There are few shows more abrasive; loud, chaotic and brash than a Guilt Trip show. Their live pits are a tour-de-force of sheer brutality and mayhem, and the Manchester outfit translate that superbly well onto their new album that’s as hardworking as the city they come from.
‘One By One’ is designed to be played live – let’s go – it kicks things off and for ‘Armor of Angels’’ we’re very much off and running. The riffs are insane and really pull you in with the beat of the drums – it’s a hardcore record and the band are very much following in the wake of Australian outfit SPEED, that recently tour up the capital with a headline show at the Electric Ballroom. ‘One By One’ encourages fans to get angry, yell and explode at the pit – the thrashy riffs evident from the off as being a fusion of hardcore and metal in a way that makes the genre appealing.
The five piece band themselves hail from Manchester, a scene that’s small and rough, so naturally the band is too – fronted by Jay Valentine on vocals, Jak Maden on guitar, Sam Baker on guitar and Tom Aimson drums with Lily Kilcoyne on bass. Maden states that Manchester is one of the hardest working cities in the UK and that this is a band that very much does not want to let the place down – so we’re off and thriving with the gauntlet set and the pressure building. Early on highlights include ‘Blood Atonement’ and ‘Cut from God’ and a transition so perfect it left me in awe, and then we’re into ‘Dirt’, a record that holds up the spotlight and the emotional dependency of oneself: “When no hope survives / I’ll take the light from your eyes til your prayers cease to be / I will break your word / is there a place for forgiveness / No not from me.”
It pulls absolutely no punches and is all guns blazing all the time – aggressive, raw and emotive. Thrash, pumping metal is where it’s at – Guilt Trip have already showed what they’re capable of with short, sharp bursts of chaos and violence. ‘Severance’ was a special album, released in 2024 that earned the band festival stops at places like Jera on Air and Download, and this feels like the best of Guilt Trip distilled into an album that’s as every bit as what came before. ‘No Love Lost’ is the pit stirrer – it builds and just goes all guns blazing – reaching the crescendo of the pit chaos with loud screaming lyrics of death and rebirth. ‘Intermission’ brings the band back down to earth and is designed, purpose built, to allow the fans as much as a breather in the sweaty pits as the band themselves. Not every hardcore band will do a set as short of SPEED’s after all and we’ve seen the gruelling intense displays of Knocked Loose.
Standout single ‘Burn’ is a sonic assault on the senses; a double bass that lets the groove riff breathe include harmonics that act as a real culture clash; but fit on the same wavelength. It’s chaos and calm operating hand in hand across a single that allows for an expression of cathartic emotion – rich, raw and powerful. It’s an album that feels linked to promoting Manchester’s hardcore scene the same way that SPEED promoted theirs – rooted in the workmanlike spirit of the city. Their prose is rooted in a loving sentiment for humanity across the globe: “all that talk just to fall short / you kept clipping your wings until you fell from the peace you sought” shows the danger of flying too close to the sun.
The passion in Guilt Trip’s record is evident – it draws from influences like Tool and Linkin Park with a sonically organic approach that’s rooted in the DNA of Manchester’s hardcore scene. It was felt at Slam Dunk at the weekend – and their spirit of keeping hardcore as intense as possible allows each hook as a chaos/carnage starter. It’s an album built to get intense and as chaotic as quickly as possible and get the people moving.
They are a band catching eyeballs now – let’s be honest, they have been in the hardcore scene for a while, and it’s hard to escape them in this scene – if you haven’t heard of them, what have you been doing? ‘Armour of Angels’ is the album designed to amplify them into the scene into the same platform as SPEED; in the sense that if it isn’t a band for you, it won’t convince you, but Guilt Trip don’t try to pretend to be anything but what they are – confidently bold in catering to the hardcore fans that already like them – perhaps ‘Resurrection’ is maybe a boundary pusher – and the fusion with P.O.D.’s Sonny Sandoval for that track allows Guilt Trip to push boundaries in more experimental fashion. “Resurrect my strength my fire… // Resurrect my grace inside of me” cries the lyrics, one of rebirth and regrowth.
This is an album that’s reflective of the get-up and grind culture of Manchester where people aren’t blessed with privileges and there’s a lot of grafting and experience. It’s a hardworking mindset that’s reflected in the band, and the heavy music embracement of bands like Madball, Sick of it All and Agnostic Front are all felt across the spirit of this record as much of the stadium-sellers like Limp Bizkit. It’s not a preachy record despite some religious undertones that the song titles would suggest at first, it’s a deeper hardcore record than that, anger, disappointment and vengeance all are combined with an outbreak of betrayal and hatred. Maden makes one thing perfectly clear: “We’re definitely having them conversations when we’re writing… we always say to each other, ‘Are you moshing?’ and the answer, will forever and always with a band like Guilt Trip – be yes.
Words by Miles Milton-Jefferies
