Australian thrash titans HARLOTT are back, and they are coming in sharp.
The Melbourne wrecking crew will unleash their new full length album Exsequiis on September 11 via Metal Blade Records, marking their first album in six years and the next major step in a career built on speed, precision, tension and pure thrash metal fire.
Alongside the announcement, HARLOTT have released the new single “Trial By Liar”, a furious first taste of what is shaping up to be one of their most focused and hard hitting releases yet.
Preorders are available here:
https://metalblade.com/harlott
More from HARLOTT:
https://harlottmetal.bandcamp.com/music
It has now been 20 years since four teenagers from Melbourne came together under the name HARLOTT, a name chosen largely because it would look good on a black T-shirt. What started there has grown into one of Australia’s most reliable and ferocious thrash exports.
After their 2013 debut Origin, HARLOTT continued to sharpen their sound across Proliferation in 2015, Extinction in 2017 and Detritus Of The Final Age in 2020. Every release pushed their breakneck style further, tightening the riffs, raising the tension and giving the band a stronger identity in the modern thrash landscape.
Now, with Exsequiis, HARLOTT sound ready to take another serious leap.
The new album is described as denser, harsher and more confident than anything they have done before. It is a razor sharp thrash record built on world class guitar work, relentless momentum and lyrics that look directly into the fractured state of the world around us.
Speaking on the evolution from their last album, the band explain:
“Detritus… was a great experience in digging out sounds and ideas that we would have been too trepidant to explore. For Exsequiis, we went further into that, but with the confidence that it would work as it had done before.”
That confidence appears to be at the core of this new chapter.
The album opens with “Incipiam”, a guitar led fanfare that sets the tone before launching into the chaos of “Void”. From there, HARLOTT push into darker and more extreme territory, with “Messiah Simplex” bringing blastbeats and blackened intensity, while “Vice Borne” twists through frantic riff patterns before exploding into a massive bouncing chorus.
Across the record, the guitar work of vocalist and guitarist Andrew Hudson and guitarist Leigh Bartley sits front and centre. Their solos have long been a key part of the HARLOTT sound, but on Exsequiis that balance of precision, instinct and wild energy feels pushed to another level.
This is not thrash that just runs fast for the sake of it.
HARLOTT have always understood momentum, but their best material also carries tension, craft and attack. From the early signs, Exsequiis looks set to bring all of that together with even more force.
Lyrically, the band remain firmly grounded in the real world.
Rather than building fantasy or supernatural escape routes, HARLOTT turn their attention toward the bitterness, division and collapse of truth in the modern climate. That comes through hard on lead single “Trial By Liar”, a track aimed at the chaos of misinformation, manipulation and the lack of consequences that seems to define so much of the world today.
The band comment:
“Truth doesn’t appear to matter anymore and there aren’t any consequences for anything. There is a war on information raging and we yearn for the day when judgement is met on these perpetrators.”
That gives “Trial By Liar” its bite.
The track is fast, aggressive and direct, but it also carries that sense of frustration that sits beneath so much great thrash metal. HARLOTT are not just throwing riffs around. They are channelling disgust, pressure and the feeling of watching the world twist itself inside out in real time.
With Exsequiis, HARLOTT are stepping back into the spotlight with a record that sounds like it will honour their roots while pushing their craft further forward. Six years is a long wait between albums, but if “Trial By Liar” is the opening strike, the wait may have been worth it.
Exsequiis will be released on September 11 via Metal Blade Records.
HARLOTT’s Exsequiis will be released on Sept 11. Find preorders at
HARLOTT Lineup
Andrew Hudson: guitar, vocals
Tom Richards: bass, vocals
Leigh Bartley: guitar
Glen Trayhern: drums
