Purest Form is a new industrial punk band from LA fronted by Story Beeson (also of Choking on Ash and Vacant Future) and rounded out by Madison Woodward (of Fury and Object of Affection) and bassist Riley Joyner (of Roman Candles and Pocketknife). They formed in 2023, and their three-song debut S/T EP comes out March 7. The first single is “Broke,” and it’s a fast two-minute rager that sounds like Nine Inch Nails’ “Wish” with a screamo makeover. The song is “about the fear of artificial intelligence and the possibilities it could hold for further separating us from ourselves and from each other in society,” says Story Beeson. “I’ve been afraid of AI for years. There’s a dystopian idea that your authentic self could be replaced by something artificial. Technology could take us away from our true selves. That’s the root of industrial music to me.” Check out the song and its vivid, technicolor music video (directed by Jeremy Stith + Kris Kirk) below.
For more on this band’s origins, their bio reads:
Vocalist Story Beeson got her start fronting grindcore bands in Nashville at just 14 years old, where her powerful vocals emerged at a young age as she served as the terrifying, energetic frontwoman of hardcore/death metal outfit Choking on Ash and hardcore punk band Vacant Future. When merged with Woodward’s dark dance beats and macerating riffs and the punishing, chugging bass of Riley Joyner, the overall impact of Purest Form has both a blasting heaviness and punishing industrial gaze that isn’t mutually exclusive with a sense of fun.
Woodward and Beeson met while working at an independent venue in downtown LA, where they bonded over a shared love of dark underground music. For years, Woodward had been making heavy synthesizer sequences in between writing hardcore and metal songs for his other bands, and experimenting with song formats inspired by the 90s industrial, alternative, thrash metal, nü metal, and “straight Orange County mosh metal” he grew up listening to. When Woodward came to Beeson with a collection of bedroom-demo industrial techno beats he’d been making “to get it out of [his] system,” even he couldn’t have predicted how well Beeson’s shredding vocals would complete their transformation into massive synth-metal. “Once Story came in and did vocals, I was like, wow, this is a real song—it suddenly has gravitas,” Woodward says.
Purest Form have one upcoming show at the moment: February 9 at Genghis Cohen in LA with Provoker, Kumo 99, Death Bells, and Touching Ice.
Tracklist
1 – Broke
2 – Optics
3 – Self Destruction
