GRIDFAILURE’s Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III, With Guests From Today Is The Day, Vastum, Secret Cutter, Les Chants Du Hasard, Thetan, USX, The Secrecy, And More, Is Out Today On Nefarious Industries

photos by David Brenner

Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III, the demoralizing new album from LoHud/NYC-based apocalypse faction GRIDFAILURE, is out today through Nefarious Industries

Preceded by Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery I: Survivor’s Remorse and Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery II: As Resources Are Depleted So Are Morals, the apex of GRIDFAILURE‘s five-album concept series continues to follow the death of our ecosystem and humanity’s renaissance of self-mutilation with Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III: Acquiring A Taste, with tales of mass-enslavement of humans for consumption, rampant cannibalism, prevalent desire and addiction to homicide, warmongering conspiracy theorists in power, the reliance on AI, and more, amidst ever-worsening extreme weather disasters, as humanity loses the war we’ve waged upon our own planet. With over eighty minutes of GRIDFAILURE’s demoralizing, confrontational battery, the record expands the project’s genre-bending experimentalism, with bizarre and theatrical excursions into jazz, classical, techno, folk, black metal, Americana, and more infused into its post-industrial/dark hardcore foundation. The series infuses material spanning GRIDFAILURE‘s existence, with recordings dating back to 2015, and some elements recorded outdoors and/or during extreme weather events.

Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III sees GRIDFAILURE creator David Brenner supplying effects-drenched core vocals, guitars, bass, drums/percussion, keys, synth, violin, theremin, found sounds/field recordings and more, while orchestrating the project’s most extensive cast of collaborators to date. Steve Austin (Today Is The Day) contributes additional lyrics, vocals, and guitar to five of the fifteen songs, which collectively feature Leila Abdul-Rauf (Vastum, Ionophore), Mac Gollehon (live/session for David Bowie, Duran Duran, Onyx, Blondie, Héctor Lavoe, Madonna), Benjamin Levitt (Megalophobe, GRIDFAILURE-live), Richard Muller (Giant Spider, GRIDFAILURE-live), Greg Meisenberg (A Fucking Elephant, Dead Register, GRIDFAILURE-live), Lane Oliver (Diminishing), Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, Deeper Graves, The Secrecy), Christopher Henry (Fuck Your Birthday, Humans Etcetera), Graham Scala (US Christmas, Interstitia, Bleach Everything), Dan Emery (Thetan), BJ Allen (Zero Trust, Xtinguish The Code), Clayton Bartholomew (Mountaineer), No One (T.O.M.B., Dossang Tempel), Morgan Evans (Walking Bombs), Hazard (Hasard, Les Chants Du Hasard), Pranjal Tiwari (Cardinal Wyrm, S.C.R.A.M.), Jared Stimpfl (Secret Cutter, Orphan Donor), Natan Vee (Cardinal Wyrm, Fyrhtu), Mike Giuliano (Big Happy), Josh Thorne (Cadaver Industry), Alex Haber, Rosa Henriquez, Pete Tsakiris, Isaac Campbell, and Rob Levitt.

With some self-recorded guest contributions infused, Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III was performed, recorded, arranged and mixed by David Brenner at The Compound in Valley Cottage, New York. The album was mastered by Dan Emery at Black Matter Mastering in Nashville, Tennessee (Kool Keith, Steve Von Till, Krieg), and completed with cover art, design, photography, and videos by Brenner.

Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III is out today digitally alongside a limited three-album cassette box set at Nefarious Industries where the “Extermination Level Eventuality,” “This Was More Than Just Killing… It Was Art,” and “Species Deconstructivist” videos are playing HERE and Bandcamp HERE.

The three Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery albums span the current unraveling of society, oblivious to the ongoing Anthropocene in which we’re immersed. The violent chapters of this triptych embody harbingers of the post-apocalyptic terrors to be told on the impending closing chapters of the album series – Teeth Collection and Drought Stick – which will see release in 2026 as part of GRIDFAILURE’s tenth year of existence.

Brenner also appears on the fourteenth TODAY IS THE DAY album, Never Give In, which is out today on SuperNova Records.

“…its inspirations are vast, with at least a dozen disparate genres forming the foundation of this record… GRIDFAILURE’s massive undertaking here pays off more than it doesn’t. Even if Sixth Mass-Extinction isn’t right about our bleak future, it’ll make you feel like it’s already here.” – Decibel Magazine

“…the album is more than a bunch of different styles spliced atop one another. The integration is much deeper and the writing is cohesive even though the musical structures are loose. This makes for a compelling listen as the chaos coheres into something uniquely powerful… It is a demanding listen, but one that rewards those willing to confront its diverse yet unrelenting focus.” – Avant Music News

“What you’re dealing with here aren’t songs, precisely, it’s dread and spiralling paranoia. The feeling of wishing you were alone, knowing you aren’t, and not knowing if the other thing knows that you’re there… the cancerous heart pumping away with grotesque animation within it is of a rare bleakness.” – The Razor’s Edge

“In a world scripting its own sixth extinction, this is the soundtrack – nerve-shredding, awe-inspiring in its terrible beauty, and horribly, inescapably on-the-nose. If dissonant thrills are your vice, dive in; the water’s rising, and this time there’s no opening the doors…” – Sentinel Daily

“With the release of Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III, GRIDFAILURE plunges deeper into a world unraveling—soundtracked by apocalyptic soundscapes, collaborative chaos, and unsettling glimpses of humanity’s trajectory.” – Capital Chaos