It’s finally here. And you know what’s hard? Putting out an EP two months into 2025 and already have it claimed by many as the EP of the year.
Following up their 2022 debut EP release, Off the Leash, Mongrel delivers your newest gym playlist titled Baptized in the Gutter through a joint effort by DAZE and HardLore.
Recorded at The Pit Recording Studio with Taylor Young (God's Hate, Twitching Tongues), the EP is comprised of five tracks, blending the heaviness of a traditional hardcore band with elements of death metal in less than 15 minutes. Comprised of ex-members from other notable bands such as World of Pain, Life or Death, and Internal Affairs, it's with little surprise that the EP is this potent.
While talking about the recording process, Mongrel guitarist Tristan Huarte told me, “The writing and recording process for this one was long. We never really expected to do anything beyond playing shows here and there when we wrote the demo and since then, I’ve had a few deaths in my family that put me into a lil bit of a mental slump.
"Finding the motivation to keep things in perspective and do it was hard. On top of that, we all had to like level up musically just to even be able to play some of this stuff. I couldn’t be prouder of everybody though for stepping up to the plate and creating something as sick as we could possibly make and that we can be proud of."
Tristan offered some insight on the Baptized in the Gutter tracking sessions: "We did the drums with our friend Alex Jacobelli at Sunsick Studios, tracked everything else with Taylor Young at the Pit, and sent all that to be mixed and mastered by the legend himself, Dan Swano (Edge of Sanity). We’ve all been playing shows our whole lives with Alex and Taylor’s bands coming up, so it was really sick making this feeling like it was all homies involved."
Opener “Tightrope Walk” goes straight into heaviness, filled with heavy, metal-influenced riffs, it closes with a slow & dangerous breakdown. Tristan says this is his favorite track off the EP, saying “that one was one of those tracks that just appears in your head as you’re writing it. I think I sat down and wrote it start to finish demo’d out and everything in about an hour. Me and Conor met up the next day and he wrote the lyrics/put his vocals on it and it came out to be probably my favorite song I’ve ever written.“
Here's what Tristan had to say when I asked about the direct musical inspirations behind Baptized in the Gutter: “Man, I feel like fishing for the influences and trying to figure out what little box to put us in is kind of part of the fun of listening to Mongrel.
"Everybody who’s given me feedback on the new EP hears it differently so I won’t feed them that easy, but I will say we’ve been listening to a lot of shit from death metal and hardcore to like Alice in Chains to rap and everything in between our whole lives and this band musically is just a direct reflection of the impact that music has had on us. If we have similar taste, you’ll probably hear the influences right away."
The guitarist also mentioned some of the bands popping off right now that had some effect on Mongrel, saying, “Some influences I will point out are Take Offense, Gridiron, Never Ending Game, Age of Apocalypse, God’s Hate, Speed, Ingrown, 3 Knee Deep, Missing Link, Vein.fm, Final Resting Place, and prob a bunch more I’m not remembering off hand.
"These bands aren’t necessarily a musical influence on us, but they’ve all dropped projects that have so perfectly executed the vision that they were after that they should cause everyone to look at their own songs and push them to put a little more attention to detail into them to keep up. This kind of friendly competitive nature is by far my favorite part of being in a hardcore band. That feeling of hearing something drop and thinking to myself, 'welp, back to the drawing board,' on all the songs I’m working on."
My favorite track off Baptized in the Gutter “No Flesh, Just Bone," arrives at the EP's end, offering a merciless aural attack. You’ll surely return to the track's 2:39-mark, that’s the sweet spot.
Mongrel will be heading out as direct support for The Warriors on their SoCal weekend run in late March, and after that, they'll be playing alongside God’s Hate and Twitching Tongues in New York and Philly in early April. Having seen Mongrel numerous times in the last couple of years in and around San Diego, I’ve personally been waiting for this release - and I’ll say that they've made the local music scene here proud.
No skips, as expected.
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Baptized in the Gutter is out now digitally, and the vinyl and CD formats are up for pre-order via DAZE and HardLore.
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