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. We spoke with project mastermind David Brenner about existential dread, musical collaboration, the erosion of morality, and creating art from collapse.
Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III dives deeply into themes of societal collapse, cannibalism, and climate catastrophe. How do you personally process the psychological weight of these topics while composing such immersive and extreme music?
It’s not difficult for me to process these topics within the confines of creating the music/themes of Gridfailure. I foresee this as a genuine not-too-distant future for the planet, which is the difficult part to process. The collapse of ecosystems all over the planet is undeniable… yet humans continue to misuse technology to misinform the public, protect fossil fuel industries, and divide economic classes further.
Those with the most power would rather shield their own resources while the planet is continually raped by human expansion. And every one of us is part of the problem—if you’re consuming water, electricity, sewage systems, AC, food… you’re just as much to blame.
Spending all day watching this transpire is the hard pill to swallow. But when it comes to Gridfailure, it all comes quite naturally and with great ease to infuse these topics into its already demoralizing sound.
You’ve assembled an incredibly diverse and prolific list of collaborators across genres. What was the biggest creative challenge in orchestrating such a vast cast, and how did it impact the final sonic narrative?
This record has fifteen songs, runs eighty-two minutes, and features twenty-six guests. That made the process extremely layered and technical. Some contributors send me random creations to manipulate, while others work directly off near-final tracks. Gridfailure has a very evident core sound that I build, but collaborators expand that in unpredictable directions.
I handled primary vocals and an array of instruments—guitars, bass, drums, synths, violin, theremin, field recordings, and more. Guests include Steve Austin (Today Is The Day), Leila Abdul-Rauf, Mac Gollehon, Jeff Wilson, Hazard, and many more. Without careful labeling and tracking, a record like this would be chaos in the worst way.
Given that recordings span back to 2015 and include field recordings from extreme weather events, how did you maintain cohesion across such a long creative arc?
The Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery series has been in progress almost since Gridfailure began in 2016. It’s a five-album arc: the first three (Skulduggery I, II, III) depict the current state and impending future of collapse. The final two—Teeth Collection and Drought Stick—explore the aftermath.
It’s an ongoing process of stitching together ideas over time, fitting parts where they belong, one album at a time. By the time the last two are released, over a decade will have passed. It’s deliberate, chaotic, but not random.
The subtitle Acquiring A Taste suggests a disturbing normalization of atrocity. How do you see this reflected in real-world behavior, and how does the album confront or comment on that evolution?
That’s exactly the idea. The first album’s subtitle, Survivor’s Remorse, focused on regret in the midst of collapse. The second, As Resources Are Depleted So Are Morals, addressed the point of no return. By Acquiring A Taste, people are no longer horrified—they revel in the violence.
Murder becomes recreation. Cannibalism becomes economy. Humanity, as we know it, vanishes. This album reflects the moment where atrocity becomes routine.
With the concluding albums Teeth Collection and Drought Stick on the horizon, how does Skulduggery III serve as a thematic or sonic turning point in the five-album arc?
Skulduggery III was initially meant to be more ambient and minimalist compared to the cinematic scope of Skulduggery II. I thought it’d be the easy one. Instead, it evolved into the most massive project in the series—largely due to the influx of collaborators.
The record was nearly complete when Steve Austin joined in. I expected a couple vocal lines. He sent original lyrics, multiple guitar and vocal tracks, and contributed to a third of the album. His involvement shifted the sound into an even bleaker, more sorrowful dimension.
With the recent passing of Ozzy Osbourne—a foundational figure in dark and extreme music—how has his legacy impacted your own approach to genre-defying experimentation or theatrical doom?
Honestly, there’s very little traditional “metal influence” in Gridfailure. I grew up on metal and still listen to it, but Gridfailure leans more on ambient, noise, musique concrète, negative space, and experimentalism.
Still, Ozzy and Sabbath shaped the terrain. Most of my favorite artists cite them as critical to their musical DNA. Without Sabbath, we’d all be listening to Top 40 pop.
Your work spans genres and includes unconventional instrumentation. What piece of gear or technique was most indispensable in shaping Skulduggery III’s unique sonic identity?
Bass and vocals are my primary weapons, but gear-wise, Earthquaker Devices’ Afterneath pedal is the most critical. Its Drag function allows truly terrifying manipulations.
Technique-wise, this isn’t a conventional songwriting process. It’s like hallucinating in art class, freewriting at the end of the world, or stream-of-consciousness paranoia. This album pushed the genre-melding even further than my past work.
In a post-apocalyptic world ruled by mutated goats and jazz-playing androids, which GRIDFAILURE track would best serve as their national anthem—and why?
That’s a trick question. In the real post-apocalyptic world I envision, there will be no survivors. No goats. No androids. No jazz.
Once the grid collapses and ecosystems die, the planet becomes a scorched, barren void. No sound. No sentient life. Nothing but time and damage. Eventually, the Earth will begin again with entirely new forms of life.
Unless we completely rethink how we live, there is no happy ending for humankind.
Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III will be released through all digital services and on cassette, alongside a limited cassette box set containing all three Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery albums, on October 3rd. Find preorder options, merch, and more at Nefarious Industries HERE. Digital presaves and additional videos/singles will follow over the weeks ahead.
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