Texas-based post-metal power-trio Glassing return with 'From The Other Side of The Mirror'

Genre-defiant heavy stalwarts Glassing have announced their fourth full-length album, ‘From the Other Side of the Mirror’, due to be released on 26th April through Berlin’s Pelagic Records.

Lead single ‘Defacer’ is a punishing, progressive onslaught of black metal blast beats, razor-sharp post-hardcore guitar playing and plaintive, throat-racking screams which sees the band push harder and faster than ever before. ‘Defacer’ sees the band introduce the introspective themes that circle the whole album, piercing the veil between our fragile sense of self and the indelible impressions that we leave on others.

Born of Austin’s underground musical melting pot; Glassing’s 2017 debut album ‘Light and Death’ erupted onto the scene as 35 minutes of harrowing blast beats, searing angular feedback and frontman/bassist Dustin Coffman’s sandpaper screams that set out to redefine the idea of heavy music to better reflect increasingly heavy times.

The Austin, Texas-based power-trio have since overcome every grisly obstacle thrown their way, sharpening their teeth over eight relentless years of touring and drinking in the wisdom earned off the back of their inimitable palette of post-hardcore, black metal and spiralling shoegaze. 2022, however, is when Glassing set the scene for what is to come. The introduction of formidable drummer Scott Osment (Deaf Club, Planet B) bolstered Coffman’s gut-punching basslines and inimitable howl and provided the perfect foil for guitarist Cory Brim’s razor-sharp playing style, as evidenced on the band’s most recent release, the eponymous two-track EP, ‘Dire and Sulk’.

More discordant, more distorted and somehow even angrier than before, ‘Dire and Sulk’ was just the beginning as, on ‘From the Other Side of the Mirror’, Glassing prove that uncertain times call for decisive measures. Recorded across two years of intense fits and starts, affectionately nicknamed ‘Hell Weeks’ by the band, ‘From the Other Side of the Mirror’ is a metaphysical foray into the fractured, warped impressions of ourselves that exist only in the minds of others.

Working again with producer Andrew Hernandez, who the band liken to a fourth member at this point, the band powered through any previous physical and creative thresholds and, as their first full-length release with Osment and their first release on Pelagic Records, ‘From the Other Side of the Mirror’ became an opportunity for a new beginning. As Coffman tells us, “This allowed us to forgo a lot of the convention and structure we've relied on in the past, the substitution was for raw expression. Kindred to the emotions that birthed it, this record is spirited, painful and unmethodical.”

As such, on ‘From the Other Side of the Mirror', Glassing invite us inside to take a hard and heavy look at ourselves from an alien, uncompromising and often unsettling perspective. The album is the convergence of self-destructive introspection and the unwelcome understanding that no one ever reveals how they really see you or, as Coffman puts it, “You might catch your reflection from time to time, but you’ll never know who put it there, them or you.” The space between soaring euphoria and dwindling hope is much thinner than so many of us would dare to admit. Glassing not only reside in this liminal space, but thrive.

Dustin Coffman on ‘Defacer’:

“‘Defacer’ is one of our more powerful compositions, it's structure is longer than most songs we play with this amount of intensity and its execution is punishing. The album as a whole is riddled with heavy and brutal performances but I would say Defacer is the pinnacle of it.

The music itself mirrors the internal conflict disclosed in the lyrics. The song's theme unravels a confession: behind our self-deprecation there lies a shield against accountability and criticism. The idea throughout the song is to relinquish this shield, let in the illumination and risk in the hopes of one day looking back to see an honest artist.”

Artistic Director, Chris Royal King on:

“The creation of the artwork for ‘From the Other Side of the Mirror’ involved a blend of methods, such as painting techniques, xerography, 3D rendering, and training generative image models."