Blackened sludge band Mastiff release blistering new single/video 'Repulse'

Photo Credit: Stewart Baxter

UK five-piece and recent Entertainment One (eOne) signees Mastiff have released their new video for 'Repulse'. Premiered via Revolver Magazine, the track is the second to be taken from their devastatingly heavy Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth album, set for release on 10th September.  

The new track bleeds apathy and disgust, grinding and churning through sludge-inspired verses layered with dissonant guitar work. 'Repulse' erupts with a bludgeoning breakdown, expanding into areas of doom and death metal. 

View Mastiff's 'Repulse' video here: https://youtu.be/WonAIjp1Y1I

Pre-order Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth here: https://www.mastiff-hchc.com

Commenting on the video, the band said: “‘Repulse’ was a song that we started writing fairly early on in the process of putting Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth together, and in some ways is maybe the most traditional Mastiff song on the album, in the sense that it’s a swirling tornado of sludge-fuelled metalcore with a big, obnoxious breakdown at the end. It was important that we had something that acted as a bridge between ‘Plague’ and ‘Leave Me…’, though we’d definitely say this is a more refined take on that sound, and might be the closest to catchy that we’re ever likely to get.

“We’re not the most politically charged band out there, but ‘Repulse’ is a direct reaction to spineless, self-serving world leaders like the one we’re currently being forced to suffer in the UK, and the orange-faced nightmare our transatlantic friends just escaped from.

"‘Repulse’ also marks the first time Mastiff has ever attempted any kind of narrative in one of our promo videos, and also the first time we’re ever let our mask of sullen misery slip to reveal that we’re actually a set of silly boys who like to make people laugh as much as grimace. We hope that hasn’t spoiled the mystique for too many people!”

Crafted in just five days at No Studio with producer Joe Clayton (Pijn, Wren, Leeched), the band’s third full-length, Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth, is a misanthropic masterpiece. The sorrow-filled souls of every miserable cretin it reaches will stir in basements, hovels, pubs, and darkened alleyways. Conceived during a pandemic-enforced longest stretch between Mastiff records, the album paints on the band’s familiar canvas, but with a far larger palette than ever before. 

Forged in 2014, Mastiff's unique combination of blackened sludge, grindcore, and powerviolence creates a bleak and chaotic atmosphere, sounding as if the spawn of Crowbar, This Is Hell, and Napalm Death composed an album inside the Lake Of Fire. The unrelenting, brutish curmudgeon aura of Mastiff can be deceptive however, as bright sparks of nuance and jarring adventurousness lurk behind every riff, rumble, and anguished, painstaking bellow stitching together a soundtrack suitable for betrayal, depression, self-loathing, and total despair, with winking, devilish glee. The bulldozing din of Mastiff is akin to the catharsis in setting something aflame just to watch it burn. 

Mastiff will bring their odes of antipathy to stages this autumn on a short UK run with Calligram. See all confirmed dates below:  

Mastiff w/ Calligram:

10/26/2021 The Anvil – Bournemouth, UK
10/27/2021 Black Heart – London, UK
10/28/2021 Satan’s Hollow – Manchester, UK
10/29/2021 Opium – Edinburgh, UK
10/30/2021 SOAR – Nottingham, UK
10/31/2021 Record Junkee – Sheffield, UK

About Mastiff: 

A miserable band from a miserable town. Mastiff hails from a tiny port city called Kingston Upon Hull, founded by 12th-century monks, and bombed to the brink of obliteration during World War II. Over the years, spiraling social depravity, poor education, and crushing economic collapse pummeled the English town, rendering it dreary and inhospitable. Hull is the end of the road for many, literally and figuratively, as its geographical location ensures that it’s not quite on the way to anywhere. It’s a specific type of human-made hell in which some folks seem destined to die without ever having left. It’s also the kind of place capable of grotesque beauty where suffocated artists might thrive.

Thank heavens for Hull, then, because Mastiff churns out delightfully depressing missives of misanthropy. Determinedly swaying between harrowing bleakness and hateful immorality, Mastiff weaponises their world-weariness and wit with brutal sludge and volatile, raw, hardcore grind. If a festival featuring Napalm Death, Nails, Converge, and Tragedy somehow survived a “Hull Blitz” of the nuclear variety to emerge as a post-apocalyptic, five-headed beast? Its name would be Mastiff.

A pair of early EP outbursts summoned a furious fuzzed-out thunder, reminiscent of the sludgy bar room brawl rock favored in New Orleans, with shades of the darkness cloaking fellow English bands of the doomier variety. Wrank (2016) and the Bork EP (2017) furthered the despair and paranoia.

And then sophomore album Plague blew the damn doors down. Recorded live-in-the-studio in just two days, Plague demonstrated Mastiff's seamless shapeshifting from harsh noise to blackened hardcore and back again. The sludge still seeped from the foundations, like a foul stench from under the floorboards. Despite the raw recording setting, Mastiff somehow sounded more polished and less restrained at the same time. A slew of stark raving reviews from sometimes disgust-adverse tastemakers like Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, and Metal Injection symbolised Mastiff's momentum.

Mastiff put their open-wound sound and spirit on display at shows with Crowbar, Biohazard, Conjurer, Cult Leader, and Iron Monkey, among others. They’ve proved adept and capable at delivering devastating performances with a diverse cross-section of heavy acts and their respective audiences. Festival appearances propelled the band’s miserable might, deepening a nascent cult status.

Mastiff are:  

Jim Hodge – vocals
James Andrew Lee – guitar
Phil Johnson – guitar
Dan Dolby – bass
Michael Shepherd – drums

Mastiff online:
Website || Facebook || Twitter || Bandcamp || Instagram || Spotify

Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth Tracklisting:

1. The Hiss
2. Fail
3. Repulse
4. Midnight Creeper
5. Beige Sabbath
6. Futile
7. Endless
8. Scalped And Salted
9. Lung Rust