Portrayal of Guilt "...Beginning of the End" [First Run Club Edition Toxic Waste Vinyl]

…Beginning of the End is the latest album from Portrayal of Guilt, a curious title for a band that has treated each release like a new creative start, constantly reinventing themselves since their inception less than a decade ago. In that relatively short time, the Austin trio have not only toured the world over, created their own musical eco-system and released three seminal full-length albums, they have done it in a manner that avoided compromise, welcomed free experimentation and avoided labels outside of "menacing," “compelling” and “must hear.”

Portrayal of Guilt made an immediate impact in underground circles with their debut Let Pain Be Your Guide by mixing nihilistic hardcore, black metal, classic screamo, and imaginative textures. We Are Always Alone and CHRISTF*CKER LPs followed in 2021, the band’s breakout body blows that corroded the band’s commitment to genre, nodding at industrial music, post-metal, sludge and even post-hardcore, all while cementing the band’s tendencies toward experimentalism. Portrayal of Guilt’s fearless spirit reimagined their own sound as classical (Devil Music EP) and EBM / goth (CHRISTF*CKER II) on more recent efforts. And though the pacing of releases and the band’s evolution has remained steady, Portrayal of Guilt’s execution has kept their audiences hungry for the band’s ever-evolving sound.

Clocking in at around 32 minutes across eleven new tracks, …Beginning of the End was recorded and mixed by Phillip Odom between March-June 2025 with mastering handled by Will Yip. …Beginning of the End embraces both the groove and avant garde, revisiting the raw, teeth-gnashing intensity of their previous work while toying with nu-metal, alternative rock, trip hop, dark ambient and other disparate influences. The latest effort feels like a band that has traversed every shadowy corner of heavy music, distilling their decade of innovation and knowledge into a singular show of force, recalling moments of greatness found on releases from Deftones, Massive Attack, Dystopia, Deathspell Omega, Celtic Frost and Cursed among many others.