Australia’s progressive music specialists Wild Thing Records recently welcomed Melbourne post-traumatic prog-death metal three piece, Growth, to their label roster. The band plan to release a trilogy of albums, through Wild Thing Records, that explore the very human aspects of connection, trauma, despair, and the fragility of hope.

The first single from Growth, Something Follows, set the scene of what is to come. The song's character in a state of despair, forced to reach a decision to either collapse, or make one last push to break through.

Now with new single, Cigarette Burns, our character is in a state of reflection. Do they continue to suffer and let their hell consume them?

Cigarette Burns opens in a wash of menacing feedback that immediately brings on a sense of forbiding anxiety for the listener, who is then dragged through this story of descent and pummelled into submission. The landscape presented by what follows is the stuff of nightmares. Dense with jarring time signatures, full of grinding abrasiveness courtesy of some truly twisted guitar playing that is also at times juxtaposed wistful post-metal passages. All led by the visceral howling of frontman Luke Frizon who's immersive detailing of this vivid story of hope and loss is drawn directly from lived experience...

Watch the video, directed by Adrian Goleby of Caligula's Horse, here

The band says: “Cigarette burns leave a mark to remember. It’s also a term in cinema for special markers in a roll of film- they let the projectionist know it's time to change the rolls over, to continue the show. It seems to make sense to reflect on our wounds, so we do it with abandon. We dwell on traumas, invite our ghosts to play out their horrors in front of us in circular fashion, until those circles are spinning so viciously their edges cut us into pieces. It’s no life to live.
It's time to change the film.”

Luke (Frizon - frontman) says of the music video: “We're thrilled to have worked with Adrian Goleby for this clip, he's got fantastic skills and a great sense of vision. The clip itself features a bunch of our good mates from the very cool band Hadal Maw. One of our members decided to dislocate his knee a few hours into the weekend-long shoot... That member was me. I don't think much was achieved by this but I stand by my decision.”

Listen to Something Follows & Cigarette Burns and also
pre order / pre-save The Smothering Arms of Mercy here
smarturl.it/growthmercy

Growth began as a reflective space for brothers Tristan (guitars/bass/artwork) and Nelson Barnes (drums) who were united after returning to Australia after a decade apart pursuing music overseas. Tristan returned to come to terms with his personal demons and after receiving a mental health diagnosis that hit with closure and terror all at once, he became a recluse. Isolated and debilitated, he expressed his pain through writing. Meanwhile, vocalist Luke Frizon (ex Jack The Stripper) had withdrawn from life to enter a period of recovery after reaching rock bottom, seeking to reconnect with himself and make meaning of hopelessness, trauma and loss.

A chance meeting on a mutual first outing from respective isolation sparked a discussion about the empathic aspects of music and quickly led to a partnership and Growth was formed.

The result is The Smothering Arms Of Mercy, a claustrophobic narrative of total spiritual collapse written while in psychiatric care and thrown over nine suffocating acts.

The album marks the first part of a trilogy aimed at going beyond expressing emotion - illustrating pathways of recovery while acknowledging the most dread-filled aspects of it.

Trauma shapes us into grotesque forms, but we can reshape ourselves better. We need the right tools, space, and kindness. Our monsters are horrific, but they are familiar. Recovery and all its implications, however, are often alien. Recovery appears brutal, extreme, terrifying. And that is why we must tilt towards it.

Recorded in Melbourne, produced and engineered by Growth. Drums engineered by Troy
McCosker (Ne Obliviscaris) and mixed/mastered by Fredrik Nordström (Opeth,
The Haunted) in Gothenburg, Sweden, SAOM highlights the extremity of grief and asks the listener to reflect on their relationship with loss and vulnerability.

Growth represents the flourishing of life even amidst total wreckage. Connection in all its forms, and our constant strive to communicate in a raw manner. Bare to the world. Visceral and honest. Pain can be the source of your renewal. Learn to greet it as a friend.