Life is moving fast for Heriot
PRESS/HARRY STEEL
Heriot’s 2022 reads like a list of career highlights most rising bands would kill for, each one more dizzying than the last. From playing ArcTanGent, Bloodstock and Download festivals in front of packed tents, to touring with luminaries Rolo Tomassi and Zeal & Ardor, and getting props from everyone from Knocked Loose to Architects’ Sam Carter and Lamb Of God’s Mark Morton, the metallic hardcore quartet – guitarist and vocalist Deb Gough, vocalist and bassist Jake Packer, guitarist Erhan Alman and drummer Julian Gage – have emerged confidently as the breakthrough band of the year.
“I have these weird moments where I’m like, ‘Is this really happening?’” laughs Deb, when we read that summary of the last 12 months back to her. Of it all, she credits the band’s debut at Download, a festival she’s been to every year as a punter since 2011, as her pinch-me moment of the year. “I used to go with my dad and he would always say, ‘One day you’ll do this, Deb.’ And then this year was the year. We could hear a ‘HE-RI-OT!’ chant before we went on. I felt like I was having a dream or something.”
At just eight tracks long, Heriot’s debut, Profound Morality, is technically an EP, but as a bunch of people on the Hammer payroll voted for it as one of our albums of the year, we had to include it. Churning together hardcore, industrial, death and doom metal, it immediately set out a new frontier for heavy music – the perfect backdrop for the band to dig into unsettling concepts.