Portrayal Of Guilt: “Maybe religion is at the back of my mind torturing me, and then it all comes out when I write lyrics”

Portrayal Of Guilt are terror translated to soundwaves, their output constantly amping up the nihilism as it pushes boundaries on all fronts. Viscerally violent lyrics, overpoweringly intense music and an aura of outright blasphemy have positioned them as one of the most provocative bands in modern metal. It’s something of a surprise, then, to meet guitarist/vocalist Matt King and find not a demonic presence but a cheerful, well-adjusted fellow – in spite of an upbringing he’s keen to downplay.

“My household, when I was younger, was pretty strict,” he recalls. “My whole family, essentially, is religious, but I always hated it.”

That this is delivered with a brief chuckle rather than a scowl suggests Matt does not identify a deep well of trauma emanating from a childhood spent in a doubly conservative situation; as well as being a committed Christian, his father was also in the military.

“I wasn’t even allowed to listen to certain music, it was hard for me to get hold of anything like metal,” he remembers. “But I’m sure there’s a ton of people that can relate to [things like] going to church every Sunday. [Back then] I would prefer to sleep in than go anywhere, let alone church. It just never resonated with me, I never really cared for it personally.”

Portrayal Of Guilt’s last full-length rejoiced in the somewhat unvarnished title of Christfucker. Their excellent new album …Beginning Of The End includes lyrics like Total Black’s ‘Abused by God, the choir of holy victims weep into the chalice of tears.’ But put it to Matt that this indicates a deep-seated hostility to Christianity and he politely disagrees.

“I wouldn’t say I’m anywhere near hostile,” he insists. “When I write lyrics anyway, a lot of it is just storytelling, pulling things from thin air. The reality of Christfucker is that when we were listening back to the album, we decided we needed the most ridiculous title we could think of. And that’s what we came up with!”

But the imagery detailed on …Beginning Of The End goes beyond shock value, with repeated visions of people being driven to self-harm, of anatomies burnt and ravaged, and on apocalyptic end-piece The Last Judgement, a hellscape where Christians are ‘Tortured by angels with whips and chains until the skin shreds from their bodies.’ While Matt actually laughs when having these lyrics quoted back at him, surely they’re evidence of some lasting mark on his psyche?

“I can’t say that my family really pushed religion on me, but maybe when I was younger it felt like they did,” he concedes. “Maybe it’s just at the back of my mind torturing me, and then it all comes out when I decide to write lyrics!”

From their origins in the hardcore scene of Austin, Texas, Portrayal Of Guilt – now completed by drummer James Beveridge and bassist Alex Stanfield – have pursued varied lines of musical attack, setting their controls in contrary directions from black metal to screamo. Outside of their full-length catalogue, parallel releases have even incorporated orchestral elements (Devil Music) or put their material into the path of electronic remixers (Christfucker II). …Beginning Of The End continues the process of experimentation, with hip-hop and nu-metal being subsumed into the band’s menacing grooves.

“Every song is different,” says Matt, agreeing when K! suggests that no single tune can sum up the album. “The faster or heavier ones, we all wrote together as a band. I have some other projects that I mess with, kind of like an exercise, but a couple of the songs that I had written on my computer ended up making sense for Portrayal Of Guilt.

“As we continue, I feel like you can only do so many of the same songs, and you can only scream so many times. I just felt like doing something else.”

This means the aggro blastcore of Heaven’s Gate and Under Siege co-exists with the bleak moodiness of Object Of Pain and Death From Above. Matt concurs that Ecstasy’s hip-hop beats carry a trace of Godflesh, while enthusing about Houston rapper Slim Guerilla’s unexpected cameo on Chamber Of Misery Pt. IV.

“I always wanted to get into producing for rappers, so I felt like I would shoot my shot on that one. I found his contact and I hit him up, and he turned the song around that same night! And I think he did a great job too. A lot of people probably aren’t gonna like that, or understand where we’re coming from, but I think it would be really interesting to collaborate more with rappers or pop artists.”

Aside from Chat Pile, with whom Portrayal Of Guilt released a split 7” in 2021, Matt finds it hard to pinpoint kindred spirits amongst their contemporaries, instead offering Swiss avant-metal legends Celtic Frost as an inspiration for Death From Above. There is one band, though, he can’t help but mention.

“Korn are all over the place, I feel,” he says of a very formative influence. “They’re in my mind at all times. Especially when writing music!”

The sort of music that was once forbidden is still rattling around Matt’s head, in defiance of childhood strictures. Does he think that, out there somewhere right now, there could be kids enduring repressive upbringings who find solace in Portrayal Of Guilt the way he once did in Korn?

“I would hope so. If people out there are in the same situation, listening to us and getting something similar out of [our music], that’d be pretty cool, to be honest.”

…Beginning Of The End is released April 24 via Run For Cover

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