Gridfailure – Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III
Release Date: 3rd October 2025
Label: Nefarious Industries
Bandcamp
Genre: Dark Ambient, Experimental, Dark Hardcore, Avant Jazz, Black Metal, Drone.
FFO: Gnaw Their Tongues, The Body, Psywarfare, Melek-Tha, Wolfskin, Lustmord, Nurse With Wound, Mandible Chatter, T.O.M.B., Khanate, Dragged Into Sunlight, Godflesh, Iceburn & Snuff Films.
Review By: Ross Bowie
Sixth Mass–Extinction Skulduggery III is the third instalment in a 5 album series that follow the incredibly bleak story of humanity’s downfall, incorporating themes of war, mass enslavement, rampant cannibalization and homicide. The album was written and curated by Gridfailure’s own David Brenner but features a large list of collaborators, all adding to the album’s madness.
If you’re looking for some background music or just some easy listening to then Skullduggery III, is as far from the as humanly possible. The album is made up of 15 tracks, but they’re less songs and more 15 varying levels of panic, sprawled across a canvas in audio form. While the musicianship is undoubtedly impressive, especially the building of tension and the often beautiful use of pads, these are simply methods to worm their way in before sinking their hooks into your back. Gridfailure have managed to create something that is completely unique and downright terrifying.
It’s almost impossible to break this album’s tracks down individually, as they serve more as layers to one looming project. The album takes a lot of avant-garde turns, there isn’t much of a tempo or BPM to any of the songs other than the rare inclusion of electronic drums, which are more in the trap/hip-hop sphere than anything traditionally metal or hardcore. There isn’t any real melody across the album’s runtime, more discordant nightmares, piercing and burning flesh as you sink deeper and deeper into David Brenner’s madness. The band’s use of “Wild recordings” keeps all the elemental aspects of the album particularly grounded with the use of loud rain, stomping feet, gravel being walked on and gives the album a human element alongside its electronics.
Skullduggery III sounds like it was written to accompany a snuff film or those videos that haunted millennial teenagers scrolling through Ebaumsworld in the early 2000s. This is the sort of album that must have been playing in Srdjan Spasojevic’s mind when creating the script for A Serbian Film, because at every second it wants to find a way to get a rise out of the listener and that’s what makes it so fascinating to listen to, it would be impossible to predict what is waiting around the corner. It truly is 82 minutes of nightmare fuel, but that doesn’t mean the quality is bad. It’s just an extremely acquired taste, it’s deeply unsettling and often disturbing, but Gridfailure have managed to make it intriguing and memorable. Even after one listen, this is an album you will never forget, an album that makes Suicide’s ; Frankie Teardrop sound like Mambo Number 5 by comparison and an album incredibly hard to put into words.
Sixth Mass–Extinction Skulduggery III is undoubtedly an album not for the faint of heart, but if you’re well versed in the world’s of noise and in-tune with what goes on in the back rooms of Berghain, then this album might just check all the boxes for you. Gridfailure must be applauded for creating an album that is this unique and out there. With another 2 albums in the series to go, it’s fascinating to picture when these maniacs will turn to for their next endeavour, but it will no doubt be an unforgettable listen.
(3 / 5)
