Desperation Sludge from members of Munt, Bøg, Religious Observance & Beggar, operating on Wurundjeri land, Class Traitor tore through the tension that had been building over Melbourne’s plagued year that was 2020. From their live debut; sold out, back to back shows at Melbourne’s revered “The Tote” in January of 2021, Class Traitor have demanded attention from audiences emerging from isolation, with an astounding display of raw, emotional intensity. This brutal yet beautiful, fierce yet fragile delivery is brilliantly captured with Calving, recorded live, in the mountains of the Dandenong Ranges amidst Victoria’s lockdowns. A truly captivating, visceral debut recorded performance, at a level of confidence normally reserved for bands years into their lifespan. On their first record Calving, Class Traitor is dealing with social disconnection, isolation, and getting ground into meat and dust within a bureaucratic, failing machine-world. Glass Heart is the first single from Class Traitor, accompanied by the hypnotic visuals of Matt MacLennan / CHRISTWVRKS. Glass Heart narrates a slow, stilted decline into lovelessness. Every damaged day is a boot on her heart. Unable to either escape or maintain, he creates an inner world where digging down to find a seed of warmth leaves his knuckles bare. Our first impression of Class Traitor, water cascades in the distance as reverie-inducing guitar patiently emerges from the aether of feedback. What follows is a unique, unapologetic and brutally honest display of heavy music, with the obvious genre tags of sludge and post-metal not quite grasping the whole picture... Continuing down the path laid out by the opener, each track maintains a vice grip of intensity on the listener, perfectly sequenced, Spaceless and Painful ebb and flow between patient despair and seething anguish, each push and pull shaking the listener as we build to the instant-classic finalé, Adversarial.
