Texan extremists chuck every genre they’ve flirted with into the pot on a savage, shape-shifting fifth album.

Words by Felix Bartlett | April 23, 2026

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Portrayal of Guilt have never been a band you could pin down for long. Since debut LP Let Pain Be Your Guide back in 2018, the Austin three-piece of Matt King, Alex Stanfield and James Beveridge have spent each record rewiring the circuits: screamo filtered through black metal, sludge played at crawling pace, orchestral interludes, goth reprisals, the lot. On fifth full-length …Beginning of the End, they’ve finally stopped picking favourites and tipped every last one of those ideas into the same crucible.

Across eleven tracks and a pleasingly economical 32 minutes, produced and mixed by Phillip Odom with mastering from Will Yip, the band lunge from one mode to the next without ever losing their grip on the throat. ‘Human Terror’ arrives like a busted industrial pump, all distorted bass and jagged sampling before King’s shredded howl kicks the door in. ‘Heaven’s Gate’ rides black metal blastbeats into open-pit carnage, while ‘Under Siege’ barks its d-beat hardcore commands and then drops into a breakdown that’ll flatten front rows.

Then comes the hard left. ‘Ecstasy’ is the moment POG’s nu-metal DNA finally stops hiding, with King swapping shrieks for hushed, reverb-smothered singing that lands somewhere between Deftones and the sort of thing the mid-period NIN crowd would chew their arms off for. Wild. Track eight, ‘Chamber of Misery Pt. IV’, hands the mic to rapper Slim Guerilla for a brief, dust-caked detour into something genuinely strange, and it should feel daft on paper. It doesn’t. It feels inevitable.

From there, ‘Total Black’ rolls with a swagger that’ll have the heavier-end mainstream heads nodding despite themselves, and closer ‘The Last Judgement’ drags everything down into pure dread, stacked vocals layered thick as King hauls the whole thing into the abyss. It’s a genuine gut-punch of a finale. Only really ‘Chamber of Misery Pt. IV’ risks losing a few listeners with its abrupt tonal swerve, but even that is worth the gamble.

Verdict: 💀💀💀💀

For fans of: Full of Hell, Chat Pile, Deafheaven

…Beginning of the End is released on April 24 via Run For Cover Records.