Arthouse Fatso have just been birthed painfully onto their scene with their debut album, Sycophantic Seizures: A Double Feature, out March 22 via Horror Pain Gore Death, and we have the whole bloody stream for you right here.
Hailing from Duisburg Germany, Arthouse Fatso began in early 2021 and were originally intended as a quick, low-investment project but soon became the main artistic pursuit of the mysterious man behind the band, known only as “The Director.”
While we aren’t currently in the practice of just quoting from press releases, I’m not sure we could phrase this any more interestingly:
“Arthouse Fatso play vicious, experimental deathgrind fueled by anxiety and a dissatisfaction with capitalism and the current state of cinema. Similar to Orson Welles’ illustrious career, Fatso thrive in the contrast between high and low brow, between the gutter and the art gallery. Deathgrind with industrial influences, neoclassical soloing and an at times funky attitude, Arthouse Fatso might have their tongue planted firmly in their cheek, but you´d be remiss to take this as a joke project. Fatso are violent, intense and can at times be as disturbing as they are humorous—and have no time to stop pummeling.”
That’s right folks, it’s not every day you encounter a deathgrind ancap band inspired by brutality and cinema, but here we are in 2024, and anything is possible. While there is still some goregrind weirdness on this that might turn off fans of more polished music, they have one thing right: They have no time to stop pummeling. The whole record is weird and discordant, but every song, in its own weird way, is a banger.
“Sycophantic Seizures is my reaction to a world where corporatism and capitalism infects not only my daily life but has an increasing effect on the media I would have otherwise used for escapism,” says The Director. “Everything is a product now. We as consumers should reject media becoming so heart- and soulless, but people instead gush about all the new slop Hollywood serves them every day. The fanboys twitch—with Sycophantic Seizures.
“I don’t know if another label would have fit the project other than HPGD. Fatso is a thorny, weird project, and I am glad to be on a label that doesn’t feel the need to cater to what weaker minds would call good taste.”