The sixth track off Thrown, the upcoming album from Philadelphia’s hardcore/sludge/grindcore duo Red Brick, is called “Asphalt.” It’s also the first single — and it might be the most direct distillation of the band’s stated purpose: to suffer and play false sludge.
Built from layers of suffocating distortion and spite, “Asphalt” arrives with the emotional weight of a wrecking ball and the tone of someone who’s one more brake check away from violence.
“When you find yourself driving, and get cut off by someone that’s texting on their phone, you know you want to see them getting scraped off the exit ramp by a vomiting fireman. Maybe you were the one that put them there,” says drummer and vocalist Chris Penrod. “This song is about that. The perfect driving song.”
It’s the kind of unfiltered, borderline feral honesty that runs throughout Thrown, which is out July 25 via Horror Pain Gore Death Productions. The album blends sludge, grind, hardcore, and death metal without feeling calculated. A consistent, pointed fury shaped by real-world conditions: addiction, burnout, queer trauma, consumer rot, and the everyday violence of class and authority. The record names the things it sees and pushes them until they crack.
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Thrown was recorded in the dead of winter, while, as the band puts it, they “mourned the living.” It’s a full-length born from the stripped-down version of Red Brick — just Mag Stephens (strings, vocals) and Chris Penrod (drums, vocals) after operating as a trio in earlier phases. That change proved elemental. “Through all our various trials and tribulations, we feel like we’ve truly found our sound on this one,” says Stephens.
The band, which includes members from Cathari, Yuckmouf, and Demiz, first emerged in 2021 with the EP Gastric, and has only gotten leaner and meaner since. Thrown includes tracks like “Wage,” “No Amends,” and “Incompetence,” each a harsh vignette in its own right. But “Asphalt” cuts to the core of Red Brick’s emotional logic — the ugly moment you imagine a scorched consequence, not out of fantasy but necessity.
