Spit Locket have spent the last year pulling themselves back together around a smaller version of the band. The Portland trio return today with “Monopoly on Pain“, a furious, devilish piece of metallic hardcore ahead of their new EP, “Eternal Salvation in a Simulated Hell“, out October 9. Devin Smith and drummer Levi wrote the whole record from scratch after an attempted six-piece version of Spit Locket became too difficult to keep moving.
That six-piece lineup came together around a year and a half ago. Devin added two guitarists, switched to lead vocals and brought Kyle Fortune in on DJing, turntables and samples. He had written an EP for that version of the band and wanted to push into a more aggressive nu-metalcore sound, get everyone playing it properly and take Spit Locket on the road.
They managed a few shows. Keeping six people in the same room was another matter. One guitarist lived two hours away and his car broke down. Scheduling became difficult across the lineup, and Devin found himself spending more time organising people than actually creating anything.
“I felt more like a manager than a creative in a band. Long story short, I bit off more than I could chew and it just didn’t work out so I decided to take a break.”
A few months later, the picture had changed again. Kyle was preparing to move to Canada. The bassist’s other band was picking up and he wanted to concentrate on that. One guitarist could not make the schedules work, while the distance still made things impractical for the other.
Devin and Levi went back to writing together. None of the songs intended for the six-piece survived into the new EP.
“All the music was written by me and Levi for this project specifically. Nothing from the 6 piece iteration.”
Writing as a pair also brought some of the enjoyment back. “It started to be fun again and I really wanted to try and take another crack at it.” Eoghan, one of the guitarists from the larger lineup, was eventually able to make the scheduling work and returned on bass. Spit Locket are now Devin on guitar and vocals, Levi on drums and Eoghan on bass.
“Monopoly on Pain” comes from the perspective of absolute evil looking down at humanity. Devin takes the idea of people with power knowingly keeping those beneath them in miserable conditions and pushes it to its ugliest extreme.
“A lot of the times it feels like the ruling class is looking down and laughing at everyone else, and the song takes that to the nth degree. The line ‘Devils dancing in our face’ to me explifies the theme perfectly.”
That anger has been part of Spit Locket for years. When we covered “Shattered Reflections” in 2023, Devin was already writing about capitalism as a source of anxiety, economic pressure and inequality. “Anxiety Piss” dealt directly with the position of working people beside those wealthy enough to escape the same pressure.
In a No Echo interview from November 2023, Devin also described Spit Locket as an anti-capitalist band supporting women’s rights, LGBTQIA+ people and POC communities. “Monopoly on Pain” keeps that politics right at the front.
The rest of “Eternal Salvation in a Simulated Hell” moves through pain, betrayal and anger. Some came from things happening in Devin’s own life. He also connects much of that anger to what he sees as the everyday effects of late-stage capitalism.
The EP was made at his house. Devin and Levi recorded the drums there, then Devin tracked the guitar, bass and vocals himself. He also handled the mixing and mastering. Joe Anderson, who worked on the previous EP, was not involved this time.
The title feeds directly into how Devin wanted the record to look.
“I wanted it to sound and look like a digital hell, like the coding that makes the simulation is falling apart.”
The interludes include a sample from the anime “Ergo Proxy” and another from “Equilibrium”, two dystopian stories set in distant futures. Devin pulled those references into the artwork and packaging without trying to turn every detail into a literal piece of the concept.
The physical edition is designed like an Xbox game case. Above the track names are small sections taken from a Hieronymus Bosch painting of hell, while the head on the front is a demonic mascot Devin made to carry the ideas running through the EP. He designed and assembled the whole package himself.
The Xbox case started with something much simpler. The band had been holding LAN parties and playing “Halo”, so Devin borrowed the format from the games they had sitting around them.
Spit Locket also made the “Monopoly on Pain” video themselves, and the band shot the photos of the physical release.
Their return comes after almost a year without playing live. Spit Locket are currently fairly detached from parts of Portland hardcore, and Devin traces some of that distance back to a series of conflicts with people in the local scene.
One concerned a Zumiez-sponsored hardcore event. Devin says Spit Locket’s drummer liked a comment underneath a post that called the event “corporate hardcore”. According to Devin, somebody from one of the bands involved later approached him at another show with a second person and made veiled threats. He says they later claimed they had “bitch checked” Spit Locket.
Another dispute centres on a former bassist, whose name Devin asked us not to publish.
“We were told about these allegations and kicked him out the day I found out, and that was right before we released ‘Shattered Reflections’ Now, 3 years later, a rumor started that we knew about it and didn’t say anything.”
Devin says the original abuse allegations reached the band immediately before “Shattered Reflections” came out in 2023 and that the bassist was removed that same day. In 2026, separate rumours began circulating that Spit Locket had known about the allegations earlier and protected him. Devin says the band were removed from a recent show because of those rumours.
Those accounts come from Devin. IDIOTEQ has not independently verified the alleged threats, the allegations involving the former bassist or the later claims about what Spit Locket knew. The other bands involved are not being identified.
“Sometimes hardcore can be really cliquey, and it’s kinda been feeling that way up here. We’ve just been trying to make the best music possible and have some cool visuals and physical media to go along with it, and not worry about whatever drama is going on.”
There are still people in Portland they remain close to. BENCHSCRAPER played some of their first shows with Spit Locket, and Devin still goes to see them when they are in town. Their vocalist Alek remains a close friend. “Alek, the vocalist, is an amazing guy.”
Kyle Fortune stayed close too after his time in the six-piece lineup. Devin played drums for him at a couple of shows, and they recorded a song together, although Devin is not sure whether Kyle ever released it under his own name.
“We just wanted to make some stuff as an excuse to hangout really. We hangout a lot, and he’s been in the background of Spit Locket for a while.”
For now, Spit Locket have the three-piece lineup, a completely new set of songs and their first real push after a long stretch away from shows. Devin sounds more interested in finding people who connect with what they are making than keeping score inside the local hierarchy.
“I feel like with this release, it’ll help us reach an audience that will appreciate a band trying to make the coolest shit, rather than be the coolest in the scene.”
“Eternal Salvation in a Simulated Hell” is out October 9. “Monopoly on Pain” premieres here today with a new video made by Spit Locket. The EP is available through the band’s Bandcamp.
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