Great Falls have today released their new single titled ‘Nicotine in the Spine’, from their upcoming album ‘The Bite That Grows Up’, dropping on October 16th via Neurot Recordings.
Great Falls have never exactly sounded like a band interested in making anyone comfortable, and ‘Nicotine in the Spine’ certainly is not the moment they suddenly discovered relaxation music. Instead, the Seattle wrecking crew comes roaring in with a song that feels like somebody kicked open the door to a particularly unpleasant therapy session and decided the best way forward was to turn the amplifiers into weapons. The guitars scrape, buckle, and detonate while the rhythm section seems determined to remove whatever structural integrity the listener had left. It is brutally heavy, but the real trick is how much emotional weight is buried underneath all that sonic carnage.
‘Nicotine in the Spine’ works because Great Falls understand that volume alone is not personality. Plenty of bands can make an enormous racket and call it art, usually while congratulating themselves for owning several distortion pedals. Great Falls have something considerably more interesting going on. The song constantly feels like it is trying to escape its own skin, with jagged riffs, punishing percussion, and vocals that sound less performed than forcibly extracted from somewhere deep and uncomfortable. The result is chaotic without becoming aimless, which is a neat trick when your musical philosophy appears to involve throwing furniture down a staircase and seeing what happens.
What gives the track its real punch is the vulnerability hiding inside the violence. The subject matter turns the song into something far more personal than another exercise in sonic destruction, and that tension makes every abrasive turn hit harder. The vocal delivery carries genuine fear, responsibility, and doubt rather than the usual tough guy posturing that can make heavy music feel like a competition to see who can scowl hardest. Great Falls instead embrace the uncomfortable stuff, and frankly, it is refreshing. ‘Nicotine in the Spine’ sounds like an honest admission delivered at maximum volume because whispering it would simply be too easy.
With “Nicotine in the Spine,” Great Falls prove once again that heaviness means considerably more when it has something to say. This is ugly music in the most complimentary sense, packed with dissonance, desperation, atmosphere, and enough low end to make your furniture reconsider its career choices. Yet beneath the crushing exterior is a song with a surprisingly human center. Great Falls are not interested in polishing away the rough edges, and thank god for that. ‘Nicotine in the Spine’ is ferocious, emotionally bruising, and genuinely memorable, exactly the kind of track that leaves a ringing in your ears and a little existential damage behind.
About ‘The Bite That Grows Up’
Seattle, Washington-based Great Falls, uniting a cast of underground lifers hailing from the likes of Kiss It Goodbye, Undertow, Playing Enemy, Bastard Feast, Gaytheist, and more, present their most unhinged and harrowing release to date with The Bite That Grows Up, rapidly approaching October release on Neurosis’ label, Neurot Recordings.
The forty-minute The Bite That Grows Up once again showcases why Great Falls is revered as one of the heaviest bands in the American Pacific Northwest. The band’s sludge-meets-hardcore brutality is tinged with hues of emotional post-metal, scathing noise dirges, blasting percussive attacks, and an all-encompassing low-end tone that obliterates everything within earshot on The Bite That Grows Up.
‘The Bite That Grows Up’ Tracklist
- A Small Weakness
- Pinned Against Time
- Worse Than Sleep
- Hailstone Numbers
- Nicotine In The Spine
- Debt Ethics
- Buildings Full Of Rope
- What No One Can Give
Joining the trio of guitarist/vocalist Demian Johnston, bassist Shane Mehling, and drummer/vocalist Nickolis Parks, The Bite That Grows Up is infiltrated with additional instrumentation by frequent collaborator John Schork (Half Majesty), and the lead single “Nicotine In The Spine” features additional vocals by Peter Clement Lund, the late guitarist/vocalist of Danish band and Great Falls tourmates Kollapse, who tragically passed away a few weeks after tracking these vocals. The album was engineered by Scott Evans (Neurosis, Sumac, Shearling) at Studio Litho – owned by Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam – mixed by Evans at Antisleep, mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (Nails, Obituary, Deadguy), and completed with photography by Mitchell Wojcik and illustration and design by Demian Johnston.
Great Falls has announced an Eastern North American tour with labelmates Kowloon Walled City, just ahead of the release of The Bite That Grows Up. The trek brings them through Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Youngstown, Brooklyn, Cambridge, and Philadelphia October 5th through 12th, including a set at Emissions From The Monolith alongside Voivod, Cavity, Torche, Rwake, Weedeater, Bongzilla, Today Is The Day, and many others. The new album will be on sale early at these dates.
About Great Falls
When Great Falls released their Neurot Recordings debut, Objects Without Pain, in 2023, it sounded like a nuclear explosion; one of the most crushing and despondent albums ever to come out of the Pacific Northwest. Drawing favorable comparisons to artists like KEN Mode, Chat Pile, and Old Man Gloom, it showed clear influence from seminal artists throughout its history, alongside a progression all their own.
Between legendary live performances at Roadburn in 2025, Northwest Terror Fest in 2026, direct support on Botch’s final European tour, and a recent US stint with heavyweight juggernauts Primitive Man, the band reteamed with Scott Evans for their follow-up. Before going into the studio, they aimed for a tamer counterpart to their previous record, like the fallout after an atom bomb. The result, their new album, The Bite That Grows Up, turned out to be one of the most vicious, brutal, and uncompromising albums of the year.
Vocalist/guitarist Demian Johnston (Playing Enemy, Kiss It Goodbye) writes his lyrics tersely, saying only what is necessary to make a point. While the guitar riffs are notoriously difficult to recreate, using bizarre tunings that find dissonance in every chord, his words on The Bite That Grows Up are to the point. Short sentences, fragments of conversations, and brief but startling admissions of guilt. They center around a group therapy session that Johnston has invented for himself, saying, “I stained the glass, I built the church, I am here every week,” on “Worse Than Sleep.” In this mental safe haven, he makes uncomfortable confessions and necessary apologies, with the lead single “Nicotine In The Spine,” addressing his own daughter. “I’m not prepared. I’m barely Dad. You should run to the woods. Find a pack. Find a home.” He is not vague or verbose, but uses poignant declarations and his flamethrower of a scream to draw you in.
This entire album is a chaotic listen with disorienting rhythms and dissonant riffs that are difficult to pin down, turning on a dime as soon as you try to nod your head to it. This is largely thanks to the complex, lightning-fast drumming of Nick Parks (Gaytheist) and Shane Mehling’s (Playing Enemy) destructive bass tone, written to line up with Johnston, or completely deviate, at the right time. Mehling is also known for a stage presence just as intense and aggressive as the monstrous tone of his instrument. Johnston and Mehling have been best friends for 25 years, and when the latter dives into the audience and starts headbutting concertgoers because his rig stopped working, all the other can do is laugh, and simply respond with “It’s not supposed to sound like that.”
The Bite That Grows Up is full of pummeling misery and heartbreak, yet the most arresting part of the record is a moment of relief. “Hailstone Numbers” is the most dynamic song on the album, highlighting the subtle noise embellishments of collaborator John Schork that are omnipresent throughout the record. The first half is most comparable to a funeral dirge, as Parks replaces his typical kick with a broken drum, his “cymbal” a metal chain, scraping on the studio’s concrete floor. Distant drones help the song seamlessly morph into the album’s emotional peak. “When we see that where we come from is where we go,” is the longest sentence spoken on the record, and it encapsulates the biggest fear prodding Johnston’s mind. Death is the one thing he feels he has in common with those around him, and eventually, we will all come crashing down with it. His scream is searing, a blowtorch against the skin.
On the closer, “What No One Can Give,” Johnston reflects on what could have been, how everything was supposed to pan out for his daughter, as he walks out of the mind church he has constructed once more. “Tell me it worked,” he begs. “That she’s all right. That she’s okay.” The album ends just as fiercely as it began, coming to a close so soon despite songs that contain multitudes within themselves, questions dying to be answered by someone who might be able to help. We must wonder where Great Falls could possibly go from here. How high can they build? How expansive will their sound become in the future? The Bite That Grows Up sticks with you long after you catch it.
LINKS:
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