Bat Lips started in Austin in 2018 as what vocalist/guitarist/synth player Paris Mygatt calls an “Art Metal” project, built around blending genres and following whatever ideas felt interesting rather than staying in a particular lane.
After a few early lineup changes, things clicked when bassist Domonic Candy joined in early 2024, alongside drummer Lukas Magalee. The trio soon wrote the Powder EP and kept pushing its anything-goes approach.
These days, Mygatt describes Bat Lips as Industrial Hardcore, though that only begins to capture what they're doing. The members came up in the early-2000s hardcore and metal scene, with Mygatt pointing to The Locust, Thursday, and The Chariot as touchstones from that era. There's also a heavy dose of '80s and '90s industrial, noise, and experimental music in the mix, including Psychic TV, Front Line Assembly, and Ministry.
That wide-ranging taste runs through the band's debut full-length, Hesperus. Hardcore and metal collide with industrial electronics, drum & bass, power electronics, and death metal across the album's 12 tracks. “This record was a huge evolution for us,” Mygatt tells No Echo. “We stretched our outer limits and explored a lot of new territory on it.”
Longtime friend Dave Alcan recorded and mixed the album at Sound Field Studio in Virginia, and Jay Maas mastered it. Mygatt says working with Alcan again mattered because the band's ideas were “a bit ambitious and maybe insane,” and Alcan already understood what they wanted to accomplish.
The ideas behind Hesperus extend well beyond music. Bat Lips also pull heavily from film. The band are fans of B-horror, sci-fi, cult, and international cinema, influences that find their way into their live show, visual aesthetic, sound design, and samples. Mygatt specifically mentions Alejandro Jodorowsky, Japanese horror, and Italian giallo films as current obsessions.
For Mygatt, Austin and the larger Texas music scene provide an equally eclectic backdrop. He points to Throat Piss, Koningsor, Transit Method, Mind Mine, Imminent End, Bondbreakr, Rickshaw Billie's Burger Patrol, Donella Drive, and Sodomy Cop among the heavy bands worth checking out.
Bat Lips themselves will spend the immediate future playing Hesperus around Texas before taking the record on tour in 2027. The band will celebrate their album's release with a hometown show alongside Rickshaw Billie's Burger Patrol at Mohawk in Austin on October 23.
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Hesperus is out now on vinyl and streaming via Second Engine Records (order vinyl + merch).
Bat Lips on social media: Instagram
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