GRIDFAILURE Issues âThis Was More Than Just Killingâ¦ It Was Artâ Video Featuring Today Is The Dayâs Steve Austin, Mac Gollehon, And More; Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III + Three-Tape Set Drops October 3rd On Nefarious Industries

August 13, 2025 Infrared Magazine Music News, News, Press Releases Comments Off

photos by David Brenner

âThis Was More Than Just Killingâ¦ It Was Artâ is the new single from LoHud/NYC-based GRIDFAILURE and the marauding factionâs impending Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III opus, nearing October release on Nefarious Industries.

Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III sees creator David Brenner supplying primary vocals and an array of guitars, bass, drums/percussion, keys, synth, violin, theremin, field recordings, pedals, and other instruments/tactics, while orchestrating GRIDFAILUREâs most extensive cast of collaborators to date. The album features additional lyrics, vocals, and guitar from Steve Austin (Today Is The Day) on five of its fifteen songs, as well as performances by Leila Abdul-Rauf (Vastum, Ionophore), Mac Gollehon (live/session for David Bowie, Duran Duran, Onyx, Blondie, HÃ©ctor Lavoe, Madonna), Benjamin Levitt (Megalophobe, GRIDFAILURE-live), Richard Muller (Giant Spider, GRIDFAILURE-live), Greg Meisenberg (A Fucking Elephant, Dead Register, GRIDFAILURE-live), Lane Oliver (Diminishing), Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, Deeper Graves), Christopher Henry (Fuck Your Birthday, Humans Etcetera), Graham Scala (US Christmas, Interstitia, Bleach Everything), Dan Emery (Thetan), BJ Allen (Zero Trust, Xtinguish The Code), Clayton Bartholomew (Mountaineer), No One (T.O.M.B., Dossang Tempel), Morgan Evans (Walking Bombs), Hazard (Hasard, Les Chants Du Hasard), Pranjal Tiwari (Cardinal Wyrm, S.C.R.A.M.), Jared Stimpfl (Secret Cutter, Orphan Donor), Natan Vee (Cardinal Wyrm, Fyrhtu), Mike Giuliano (Big Happy), Josh Thorne (Cadaver Industry), Alex Haber, Rosa Henriquez, Pete Tsakiris, Isaac Campbell, and Rob Levitt.

With some of the guest contributions recorded by the respective artists, Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III was performed, recorded, arranged and mixed by David Brenner at The Compound in Valley Cottage, New York. The album was mastered by Dan Emery at Black Matter Mastering in Nashville, Tennessee (Kool Keith, Steve Von Till, Krieg), and completed with cover art, design, photography, and videos by Brenner.

âThis Was More Than Just Killingâ¦ It Was Artâ and its corresponding video sees Brenner joined by longtime friends and family, including Steve Austin, Mac Gollehon, Mike Giuliano â Brennerâs bandmate from their first band together in the mid-1990s â and Brennerâs nephew, Isaac Campbell.

Watch GRIDFAILUREâs terrifying âThis Was More Than Just Killingâ¦ It Was Artâ video HERE.

Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III will be released digitally and on cassette alongside a limited cassette box set containing all three Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery albums, on October 3rd. Find preorders, merch, and more where the âExtermination Level Eventualityâ video is playing at Nefarious Industries HERE and Bandcamp HERE.

Digital presaves and additional videos/singles will follow over the weeks ahead.

The apex of GRIDFAILUREâs unraveling five-album concept series, continues to follow the death of our planetâs ecosystem and humanityâs renaissance of self-mutilation with the projectâs most ambitious work to date. Preceded by Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery I: Survivorâs Remorse, and Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery II: As Resources Are Depleted So Are Morals, Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III bears the subtitle Acquiring A Taste, as humanity embraces and exalts this downfall.

Depicted within Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III is the mass-enslavement of populations, rampant cannibalism, prevalent desire and addiction to homicide, and more, amidst ever-worsening extreme weather disasters, with humanity losing the war weâve waged upon our own planet. With over eighty minutes of GRIDFAILUREâs demoralizing and confrontational battery, the record expands the projectâs genre-bending experimentalism, with bizarre and theatrical excursions into jazz, classical, techno, folk, black metal, Americana, and more infused into its merciless post-industrial foundation. As with the rest of the series, Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III infuses material spanning GRIDFAILUREâs existence, with recordings dating back to 2015, and elements recorded outdoors during extreme weather events.

The three Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery albums span the current unraveling of society, oblivious to the ongoing Anthropocene in which weâre immersed. The violent chapters of this triptych embody harbingers of the post-apocalyptic terrors to be told on the impending closing chapters of the album series â Teeth Collection and Drought Stick â which will see release in the years ahead.