Unwanted Guest morbidly went for baroque in their debut album, Grave Metallum

With an intro consisting of news broadcasters announcing the deaths Cobain and Winehouse, Unwanted Guest certainly knew how to make an instant impression with the title single to their debut album, Grave Metallum.

The morbidly carnivalesque hard rock hit puts a baroque spin on grunge while carrying reminiscences to Fable Cry and Abney Park around percussion that would make Mudhoney dizzy, the frenetic bounce of the basslines and doom-harbingering guitars.

Yet, the true beauty in the title lies in the nuanced way Unwanted Guest present our ‘icons’ as the line-up in a freakshow that we voyeuristically watch in the hope we see their rise AND fall. With the media frenzy that whipped around Taylor Hawkins this month, Unwanted Guest was definitely onto something.

Grave Metallum was officially released on March 21st. It is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast