Initially comprised of Preston Maddox (bass, vocals, keyboards, samples and programming) Jake McCown (drums, noise, programming) with recent recruits Jack O’Hara Harris (guitar), Richard Napierkowski (synth) and Martin McCreadie (synth) joining to flesh out the band’s live set, Austin, TX-based shoegaze act Bloody Knives have developed a reputation locally and regionally for a sound that meshes elements of punk, industrial electronica and ambient electronica with 8 bit glitches, bloops and bleeps; in fact, sonically speaking their sound is reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine, A Place to Bury Strangers, The Jesus and Mary Chain and others as their sound manages moments of punishing and noisy bleakness with moments of sublime and dreamy beauty.
The Austin shoegazer band’s latest album I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This was released last month through Saint Marie Records and as the band mentions in press notes, the album is inspired by the “forgotten places, the dark corners of empty cities, decaying buildings filled with vacant people” — the world of the lost and broken.” “Poison Halo,” the album’s first single will will further cement the band’s reputation for crafting a gritty, punishing and yet dreamy wall of sound consisting of shimmering synths, fuzzy guitar chords and a driving motorik groove paired with Maddox’s moody crooning floating over the ominous and murky mix.
The recently released music video splits between footage of the band performing the song under rapidly flashing strobe lights and creepy horror movie-inspired footage of the aftermath of a car wreck in the middle of the woods — the sort of words in which strange and murderous characters lurk and prey on the innocent, adding to the creeping dread at the core of the song.
