Guilty? by Rebel Trust Is Grunge Nihilistically Dragged Back into the Basement –

Rebel Trust caustically cut across post-grunge with the single, Guilty?, from their recently released LP, 31 Atlas. Far more gnarled and scuzzed than anything Dinosaur Jr. ever conjured, with the melodic gravity of their most iconic hits, Guilty?, in all of its nihilistic ennui, drags mainstream grunge back into the basement.

The songwriting chops are as sharp as what made the pioneers legends in the 90s, but the punk energy riling the sludgy vocals and instrumentals places Rebel Trust in a far more disenchanted territory, one which reflects the malaise of your own life and the wider world falling apart simultaneously. The riffs stay raw, simple and melodic in the way grunge should be, carrying the brutal honesty of Nirvana’s era without sounding like a museum-piece imitation.

Rebel Trust is a one-man project, created entirely by Robert without AI, made in the slivers of free time left between hospital shifts. That context gives Guilty? a working-life exhaustion and a lived-in strain that cannot be faked. If we are all being honest with ourselves, we can probably all relate to Guilty?, even in an abstract way. All it takes is one first-world problem, and we are spiralling until we are beckoning the apocalypse.

Guilty? is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast