Extreme metal and hardcore don’t unsettle the way they did five years ago. Knocked Loose play mainstream festivals and pull support slots most heavy bands would have considered alien a decade ago. The harshest end of the genre keeps getting absorbed by the centre. Melbourne’s Melting are pushing the other way on second EP “A Pathetic Excuse For A Life“, out Friday 29 May via Greyscale Records.
Latest single “The Sword” runs 1:01 and spends none of it warming up. Rapid-fire rhythm section, chugging guitars, no rest at any point in the runtime. While much of the EP sits in darker, more personal territory written by vocalist Xavier, “The Sword” stands as one of the more outwardly uplifting moments on the record.
Guitarist Alex Bertuna explains: “The EP as a whole tackles some very personal, dark and heavy topics for Xavier, but I wrote ‘The Sword’ to be something of a ‘stop letting life happen to you’ kind of thing. Stop begging for guidance, figure it out yourself, hold the f*ckin sword.”
“The Sword” follows earlier single “Glare“, which also appears on the EP. The band describe the record as a series of pointed shots aimed outward.
“The way we see it, every song is pointed at a different kind of person that can make your life feel like hell. There’s an undertone of overcoming it running throughout though.” Revolver Magazine placed “The Sword” on their Best New Songs list last week, predicting the full record would be “killer, from tip to grip”.
Where the production trend for heavy bands in 2026 keeps pushing toward layered, polished walls of sound, Melting went the opposite direction. Guitars, bass and vocals were tracked at the band’s home studio, just like on debut EP “You Exist Because We Allow It”. Drums were the only compromise. Those went to Clay and Angie at The Brain Studios in Sydney, and once the band heard what the pair could pull out of the kit, they handed over the mix as well.
Drummer Johnny Foti walks through the build of the record.
“Before coming into writing and recording ‘A Pathetic Excuse For A Life‘ we had been focusing on laying down the foundations of Melting. ‘You Exist Because We Allow It’ was received far better than we could’ve hoped and we appreciate that record so much. Without it, ‘A Pathetic Excuse For A Life’ wouldn’t sound how it does today.”
“I think learning from the first EP, we all knew that we wanted to push our sound further into something far more chaotic and raw. We wanted to crank the aggression and hold nothing back.”
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“From hearing the first set of demos my immediate reaction was, ok these drums need to hit relentlessly hard and at the right moments. I had been writing and constructing drum patterns and fills for all these songs for months on end in various rehearsal studios. Also getting together with the band and constructing new sections, trimming the fat to make the songs as relentless as possible.”
The decision to stay DIY on guitars, bass and vocals was a conscious one. “We recorded guitars, bass and vocals at our home studio, exactly how we did with ‘You Existโฆ’, it was important to us to leave some human elements in the production so there’s some off timing and imperfections that you only get if you DIY a recording process. The only compromise was recording drums, we love the drum sound Clay and Angie can get and wanted to work with them to make the drums right.”
That decision then expanded. “When we discussed the drum recording process, it quickly evolved into just letting Clay and Angie mix the record as well. Mixing a record yourself is rewarding, and we did that with ‘You Existโฆ’, but something about handing it to people that share your vision is equally as rewarding and for this record we felt that as long as we kept as DIY ethos as possible, expanding the team we worked with wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
The title track produced the most memorable studio moment. “There were many moments in the studio where some of the original drum parts hit the cutting room floor. One example would be on the title track, ‘A Pathetic Excuse For A Life’. The little drum breaks towards the end of the song were added on the fly. We needed something that was gonna fit without overplaying while keeping it impactful. My original ideas were no good, so I asked Clay and Angie to just hit record and see what I could come up with. I knew out of instinct, that I wanted to strip the drums back while making them sound more tribal. I came up with the final patterns on the spot during one of those takes and we all agreed that they were perfect.”
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Mix revisions stretched on for months. “Loosening the guitars and letting the small imperfections breathe. Letting the vocals sit deeper in the mix, blending them into the noise. It was a long process, but also a necessary one.” The result, in Bertuna’s words, is “a record that gives you no rest, just bludgeons you for the entire runtime and then stops. It somehow feels faster, but also sludgier than our last release at the same time. We considered each other’s influences a lot more with this release and that really shines when we’re playing the music live.”
Foti is direct about what the record exists for: “As a band, we wanna make what we wanna play. Hard hitting, energetic bursts of aggression. Keeping the foundations simple while throwing in creative and more technical sections, just to scratch that itch every now and again. It’s music you wanna mosh to in tiny, sweaty venues and we wouldn’t have it any other way.” That live-first orientation is baked into the production. “What you hear on the record, is what you get when you see us play it live.”
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The EP arrives after a heavy first year of activity. Melting turned heads with debut singles in 2024, signed to Greyscale Records in early 2025, followed up with “874” and “Into The Suffer”, and built that run into “You Exist Because We Allow It”. Since then they’ve shared stages with King 810, Malevolence, Alpha Wolf, The Gloom In The Corner, Thornhill and Bloom.
“This first year of ‘You Exist Because We Allow It’ has been absolutely nuts,” the band say. “It’s hard to put into words how full on it has been. All we know is that we are so grateful to have done all the things we have already done in such a short period of time. Camp Melting is firing on all cylinders, and that’s a nice feeling, especially with so much coming up!”
“A Pathetic Excuse For A Life” is out Friday 29 May via Greyscale Records. Cover art by Rhys Knight.
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