6th February 2026
Christopher Nosnibor
GLDN – the musical vehicle of New York industrial / metal artist Nicholas Golden. It’s been a good couple of years since we’ve heard from him, but he’s back with what he’s calling a ‘hard reboot’. And there’s some emphasis on ‘hard’ here.
Of ‘Vessel’, GLDN is up-front, writing of ‘abandoning the organic grit of the First Blood era, this track establishes a cold, clinical architecture. It is an industrial-metal indictment of the “Trauma Economy”— where pain is sold as content…. merging the mechanical dissonance of 90s industrial with the high-fidelity aggression of modern metal.’
The first fifteen seconds alone are a brutal slab of overloading distorted guitar, bringing that nu-metal brick walling, lump hammer-like bludgeoning. The sound is thick and heavy, and when it arrives, Golden’s vocal is menacing and tortured, at first a whisper, then a scream. Amidst a snarling trudge of heaviosity, Golden evokes Trent Reznor circa The Downward Spiral in his vocal delivery, but occasionally veers into raging metal, following the instrumental work into squalling grindcore territory.
Although tightly structured, ‘Vessel’ is not a verse / chorus song: it’s a relentlessly brutal assault of the most devastating order. It’s the sound of extreme emotional violence, it’s having your oesophagus ripped out by a clawed hand, it’s nihilistic rage distilled into less than four minutes. It’s nothing short of devastating.
Aural Aggravation 