If you’re looking for up and coming heavy bands, you’re unlikely to look towards the rural Southwest of England. However, there is one band that are looking to change that. Cainhurst describe themselves as "South West Violence" and their body of work is more than a perfect example of that moniker.
From the 2023 debut release, A Ceremony, through to their latest EP, 2004's A Sacrifice, the band have proved that they can deliver vicious, skin-flaying instrumentals and raw, emotive poetry in equal measure. We have been fortunate to catch up with the group to discuss get an insight into their journey to date and what is to come.
Your most recent EP, A Sacrifice, was a little while ago now. How did you go about writing the release?
"Wrest Me From the Jaws of Heaven" was the only song written with the whole record in mind. We had been writing songs over the course of a few months, jamming riffs in rehearsals and hanging out in each other’s bedrooms making demos and fine tuning everything. Once we started writing "Wrest Me," it was like finding the final missing piece of a puzzle we didn’t know we were making.
Lots of influence came from classic bands like Jeromes Dream and Orchid with the grander parts coming from a love of post-metal acts such as Oathbreaker and Amenra.
The sound on the record is noticeably sharper, without losing the rawness that makes your sound so abrasive. Was this a conscious effort?
Not really! Most of the songs were written not long after we recorded A Ceremony in 2023 and "Their Eyes Were Watching God" was actually recorded at the same time, but we decided to leave it off that record.
With A Ceremony, most of it (apart from lyrics) was written by Joe in their bedroom before the band had started, so with everything on A Sacrifice it was a lot more collaborative and I think by coming together after having just been in the studio, it put us all on the page songwriting-wise and we were able to create something a lot more mature.
Can you talk about the themes you explore lyrically on the release?
Thematically, the EP explores and expresses some of the things inside of me that affect me negatively (gender dysphoria, paranoia, isolation and suicidal impulses). This contrasts with and a continuation of our debut EP, A Ceremony, which is more of a discussion on external issues. "Wrest Me" serves as the full stop on both EPs, describing coming to terms with the fact that there is no true way to escape this all forever other than death, and rejecting this escape by making the decision to live, not just once but every single day, through conscious effort.
Have you been writing new material? Are we looking towards a new release for 2026?
Over the last few months, we’ve (slowly) started writing songs with an LP in mind, as for when that’ll be done and out, we’d love to tell you, but we couldn’t.
We have plenty of other songs in the bank we really want to get out into the world, our aim for 2026 is to record and release a two-track single at the minimum and hopefully be a part of more compilations and splits.
What is the local scene like in the West Country currently? Are there any bands you would like to shout out?
There’s not many screamo bands in the Southwest now but just this year we’ve had lots of incredible international bands come through Bristol like Storm{O}, Blind Girls, and Knumears so I’m really hopeful that’ll inspire more kids to start bands.
We play a fair amount of mixed bill hardcore shows and we’re all very much involved in Bristol’s hardcore scene (our Joe also plays guitar in death metal/hardcore crossover band Plague Pit), the thing we’ve always loved about the DIY scene here is how strong the sense of community is here, it’s very hard to find someone with any kind of ego.
Making sure everyone who comes to a show feels at home is the core of everyone’s values, there’s so much wonderful diversity in this city and country, and we all want to celebrate it. There’s an endless list of friends we could shout out but for now we’d like to name some newer bands doing cool things: Funeral, Goram, Chained Existence, Circumvent, and Scathing all rip!
Finally, do you have a message that you would like to put out there for our readers?
Put work and love and faith in your scene and community and lift each other up. This is the only way we win.
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Cainhurst on social media: Instagram
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