Heriot: At The Fortress Gate

Imagine venturing through a vast, scarred land, where the undead roam open fields. Ravaged by a dangerous sickness that eats away at life like a vicious plague, this world is not for the faint-hearted. It could be Elden Ring’s region of Caelid, or it could be the debut album, Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell, from HERIOT.

“Caelid is definitely what comes to mind; that hellish, fiery landscape,” laughs guitarist Erhan Alman, swinging idly in his chair as he reflects on the record. “There’s elements that are dreamy and atmospheric, almost serene, but then it will swallow you whole and spit you out somewhere horrible.”

Experiencing Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell in its entirety is exactly like Elden Ring. You’re forever trapped in a false sense of security. The minute you stop looking over your shoulder, you’re done for. Opaline’s shoegaze wallows in the dense darkness of space, until its groove-laden blackhole eats all stars in its sight. Lashed’s mechanical heartbeat pulsates with throbbing synths, as vocalist and guitarist Debbie Gough assumes the role of your unreliable narrator through its dysmorphic wasteland. Sentenced To The Blade whammies its way into stadiums, before sliding the blade straight through your skin.

You might think it’s by design to constantly keep listeners on their toes. Only, you’d be wrong. For Debbie, Erhan, bassist and vocalist Jake Packer, and drummer Julian Gage, it’s as much a surprise to them as anyone else. “That is the beauty of being in this band, I genuinely don’t know what we do next,” smiles Erhan, who’s willing to admit their time touring arenas with ARCHITECTS had a profound impact on their debut, more so than any musical influence could.

“Most didn’t know who we were, and the way [2022 EP Profound Morality] was written is quite janky, bits cut into different sections quickly and quite sharply, and we felt that from the crowd,” he admits. “This was us trying to find a good medium between being a bit more palatable, so more people can be drawn in by it, but not sacrificing the way we sound in any way.”

To achieve that, HERIOT enlisted the services of an ex-Architect to construct Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell, as Ehran explains. “This is an influence from Josh Middleton: make sure that all the songs that we’re writing can be someone’s favourite in some way. Obviously, you’ve gotta listen to him, because he writes incredible records.”

Working with the SYLOSIS frontman and ex-ARCHITECTS guitarist helped shape them as musicians, from working with Debbie and Jake on where their vocals sit, to helping Ehran develop from live artist to recording musician. “As I’m self-taught, I play really, really hard, and I break a lot of strings and he was like ‘you play too hard’. He helped us figure out how to do things properly, to make things sound good!”

Few bands get the chance to assemble a dream team to help breathe life into their debut album, yet HERIOT have. Along with Josh’s production, SIKTh’s Justin Hill engineered the drums and Will Putney mixed the record.

“Will Putney, well, the Grammy can speak for him,” Ehran laughs, who’s ability to make the extraordinary sound ordinary is refreshing, as Julian humbly adds. “When his name was floating around, I just thought it’s too good to be true, he’s not gonna have time to work with a band as small as us, but he pushed for it, he wanted to do it, and made time in his schedule to make it happen.”

Whilst they’re the first to say Will unearthed things they didn’t even know were there, Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell is fundamentally the result of four musicians striving to push what’s humanly possible as musicians. Ultimately, that’s what HERIOT hope people take away from it.

“I hope people listen to it and think it’s a different take on the music that we love, that it’s pushing boundaries on what heavy can be, rather than just low-tuning guitars,” Erhan explains, before cautiously adding, “we’re not thinking this is going to break boundaries, that it’s going to be the best thing that everyone’s ever heard in their life.”

Sorry Erhan, but Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell is the kind of debut that moves mountains for bands brave enough to make them. Since releasing Profound Morality in 2022, they’ve opened the Opus Stage at Download Festival, counted heavy metal legends like TRIVIUM’s Matt Heafy and LAMB OF GOD’s Mark Morton as fans, and signed to Century Media Records. If you ask someone about the future of heavy music, they’re one of the first names mentioned. That pressure must’ve played on their minds when making their debut.

“It’s really cool to have those accolades, and I don’t think we expected anything close to that when we made Profound Morality, so I think in a way, it drove us to do better,” Julian admits, just as humble as Ehran in his answers. “It probably was on our minds when we made the record, but once we’re all together, we don’t think about outside influences too much. We don’t want to think too much about that kind of stuff, because if you do, you’re not being true to yourselves, and it’ll turn out a different record to what you originally anticipated.”

Experiencing HERIOT live is finding enjoyment in walking over hot coals, as all four member’s eyes burn into you with seething aggression, as if you’re a piece of meat ready to be devoured. That fierce aggression, according to Ehran, comes from other bands not cutting the mustard.

“I won’t name names, but there are definitely bands out there that aren’t as exciting live as their record sounds. So it’s always been a big thing for us to have a really exciting, fun live show. I wasn’t too big a fan of HECK on record, but then when I saw them live, I was walking past the tent, and I saw a cab being floated around in the crowd. I was like, what’s going on, and I saw it was the band that were doing that, and I was like, okay, well, this is really cool.”

The aggression they bring live feeds from the world around them, which too, feeds into Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell. “The whole general vibe of that title is feeling overwhelmed, and being swallowed by everything that’s going on around you, which I think people feel all the time, like it’s very bleak at the moment, isn’t it?” Julian says, “it’s not a nice feeling, but hopefully people can take some positives from the record.” If you were looking for a starter for 10 on the album’s themes, you’ll find no help from HERIOT.

“We like the idea of being abstract and open to interpretation,” Ehran explains, adding “that’s how Jake and Deb write their lyrics, they might have clear motives but it’s never written out like that, you’re not singing along to ‘I hate my dad’ or whatever.”

“I think that’s fun for music, because everyone can take what they want from it, and how they feel from it. It’s a similar thing to how we’ve done all the aesthetics and art and all that stuff as well, like it’s not clear as to what things are sometimes, and that’s not a bad thing, because people take from it what they want.”

“If you’re a fan of our music, there’s going to be expectations. I just want those expectations to be met and exceeded if possible, because I can look at our past stuff and just think we’ve done everything better, like this is 1000 times better than our old material, so I hope other people see that and agree.”

Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell is out now via Century Media Records. 

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