Track Premiere: Portrait People—”Exit (Through The Sun)”

Posted: by The Editor

Portrait People is the Pittsburgh project-turned band of songwriter Nic Temple. You might know him from the more popular Pittsburgh band String Machine, and two other members of that band also play in Portrait People. In fact, a bunch of other String Machine members contributed parts to this record, so it’s almost like a String Machine side-project—but also not really. To namedrop another Steel City institution, it’s kind of like an Adventures and Code Orange situation. Today, Portrait People are announcing their debut album Hallow, and we’re premiering a really rippin’ single from it today called “Exit (Through The Sun)”.

Whereas String Machine’s music dances between fluttering post-rock and earthy indie-folk that seems to stretch upward, Portrait People’s music is much darker, shadowy, and downward-facing. “Exit (Through The Sun)” is the closer on Hallow, and it sounds kind of like the beefiest, least nasally Say Anything songs channeled through Past Worn Searching-era Rainer Maria being covered by Spraynard. Let me put it a different way: this is a FEST emo band, whereas String Machine are a Pitchfork Music Festival emo band. The heavy guitars on “Exit (Through The Sun)” could be swapped into either a shoegaze or screamo song and they’d work just as well. There’s a girthy crunch to them that really hits, and a resounding chorus that begs to be yelled back with beers in hand.

Sadly, we can’t do that just yet. But you can stream the track below and check out their Bandcamp page for more info on Hallow.

Hallow is out October 2nd via Earthwalk Collective.


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Eli Enis | @eli_enis


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