Portland noise-sludge trio HISS arrive with some ugly credentials already baked in. The band may be new, but its members have been grinding through the Pacific Northwest heavy underground for years: guitarist/vocalist Robert Comitz and bassist/vocalist Kirk Evans previously played together in Still/Form, while drummer Chase Hall also logged time with Comitz in Marriage + Cancer. Put another way, HISS are not a clean break from those bands so much as the heaviest, most hostile pieces dragged into a new room and left to rot.
On debut album A Cheapened Crown, Hiss lean into sludgy, heavy noise rock that refuses to settle neatly into metal, post-hardcore or noise-rock orthodoxy. The guitars scrape and lurch with the same kind of disturbing, jarring tension that made Marriage + Cancer feel so unstable, while the low-end heft recalls the more crushing side of Still/Form. But HISS are less interested in genre lineage than in impact: driving heaviness, ugly riffs, punishing rhythms, and Comitz’s raspy vocals add an extra layer of unease over the whole thing.
“‘100% Wool’ is about how people will do anything to get a lick of the boot,” Comitz tells Decibel. “Like, they want to lick it… they need to lick it.”
Recorded at LoRent Studio, mixed by Bob Cheek and mastered by Carl Saff, A Cheapened Crown sounds carefully built without losing its sense of physical damage. It is heavy in the old-fashioned way: not over-slick, not over-explained, just dense enough to make the floor feel questionable.
A Cheapened Crown is out August 21 as a three-way release between Diptired Records, Hex Records and the band. Stream the full album below and pre-order it via Hex Records or Diptired Records.
HISS, “A Cheapened Crown” by HISS
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