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Monday, September 22, 2025

TRACE AMOUNT - FLAGRANT


 

TRACE AMOUNT: industrial dynamo reveals details of sophomore album FLAGRANT; new single "Clinical" (ft. Lana Del Rabies) streaming now with live video

From Brooklyn, New York, one-man industrial dynamo Trace Amount announces the November 14th release of sophomore album FLAGRANT.

FLAGRANT was tracked at Corpus Studios in Queens, New York with Harlan Steed of Show Me The Body, produced and mixed by Trace Amount, and mastered by Kris Lapke (Cold Cave, Prurient).

The album will be released on Bleakhouse, the label founded by industrial-hardcore powerhouse King Yosef.

New single "Clinical," featuring guest vocals by Lana Del Rabies, is streaming now. The official "Clinical" music video consists of live Trace Amount footage shot on tour in Mexico City this month, as well as actual live soundboard audio from that show. Stream the video, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5gQVRRsyBc

Pre-order FLAGRANT, here: https://bleakhouse.co/collections/all/trace-amount

First conceived in 2019, Trace Amount is the creative outlet of vocalist, drummer, producer, and visual artist Brandon Gallagher. The project took shape during the early stages of the COVID pandemic, inspired by the grim realities of life in New York City at that time, and has evolved at a lightning pace ever since. Revolver Magazine has described it in these words: “Trace Amount is the one-man project of Brooklyn's Brandon Gallagher, a prolific musician and visual artist… In just a few years, he's already unloaded a wealth of harsh, confrontational industrial material under the Trace Amount moniker... Glitchy vocals, pounding drums, screechy noise soundscapes and a pummeling atmosphere." BrooklynVegan meanwhile has labelled it as "the exact middle ground between The Downward Spiral and the death industrial/power electronics scene."

Developing Trace Amount at a relentless pace over the past six years, by way of singles, EPs, remixes, and one full-length album (2022's Anti Body Language), Gallagher has grabbed influence from anywhere he pleases, and collaborated with whomever he chooses. Ungoverned by typical rules of style or methodology, answering to no one, Gallagher has used Trace Amount as a free space in which to express himself. He states: "Through the nature of collaboration with various artists, the overall sound has dipped into different sub genres – whether that's EBM, darkwave, post-punk, drone, or power electronics. There is definitely a dub influence, inspired in part by Mick Harris' work in Scorn, and I am always subconsciously influenced by hip-hop production because that's 80% of what I actually listen to on a daily basis."

Furthermore, Gallagher happily admits the influence of sports and gym culture on Trace Amount. Live photos of Gallagher reveal a man often clad in hockey, soccer, and basketball jerseys. "With the threat of civil war or another global virus," he says, "yeah, you should probably be able to run a mile and then lift yourself up over a fence, because who knows what the fuck is going to happen. My music is designed to be your gym soundtrack."

Despite the wide-open artistic mindset at its core, the Trace Amount sound seems to grow only more suffocating with each release. Trace Amount's portal-to-hell-in-the-basement aesthetic has been in place from the very start and, as Gallagher hones his craft on each successive release, the airless room turns a shade darker. On sophomore album FLAGRANT, drums pound coldly and sparsely. Ambient tones surge like choirs of evil angels. Gallagher's groans and screams drip with contempt. FLAGRANT is not so much music to be appraised, but a beating, a purge, a guided tour of pure torment. 

Describing the lyrics, Gallagher says, "It all spawns from pain, whether it's personal or political. Lyrically, I've been able to create a vocabulary for Trace Amount that's based around dystopian or cyber-horror scenarios." 

"Dream of deletion / lust for erasure / anything to ease the pain," he rages on "Clinical." Lana Del Rabies' guest vocal, buried in the mix, provides that track's only glimpse of light. 

Part of what defines Trace Amount and makes the story so exceptional, is Gallagher's sheer willpower. To achieve what he has achieved in six years – the collabs, the tours, the media acclaim – is remarkable for any DIY solo project, but especially for one as utterly personal and abrasive as this. Some of the highlights of the journey thus far include: collabs with artists such as the late Blake Harrison of Pig Destroyer, Uniform vocalist Michael Berdan, Integrity mastermind Dwid Hellion, Rhys Fulber of Front Line Assembly, and Kontravoid; releases on labels such as Greg Puciato's Federal Prisoner and now King Yosef's Bleakhouse; tours of Japan, Australia, the UK, Mexico, and the US; and bills shared not only with the best of the industrial and noise scenes (Youth Code, Hide, and Dreamcrusher, to name three), but with titans of other genres too. Case in point, the Mexico City show immortalized in the "Clinical" music video was part of a tour with shoegazers A Place to Bury Strangers.

Unapologetically, Gallagher continues to grind forward and burrow deeper into the world he has been building, playing by his own rules. The title of the new album says it all. "In basketball, the most aggressive foul you can get is a flagrant foul," he explains. "Like, you're literally swinging at another player with intent. That's me. I am intentional.
 I am flagrant."

Tracklisting:
1) Restricted Area
2) Off Leash
3) Seeing God on the L Train (ft. Fatboi Sharif)
4) Clinical (ft. Lana Del Rabies)
5) Flagrant2
6) Conflict of Interest
7) Boomer Terrorism (ft. The Buttress)

Discography:
Fake Figures in the Sacred Scriptures - EP (2019, self-released)
"Obsessive Diagnosis" - single (2020, self-released)
"The Hanging Garden" (The Cure) - single (2020, self-released)
Endless Render - EP (2020, self-released)
"Concrete Catacomb" - single (2021, self-released)
Under the Skin - EP (2021, Deathbed Tapes)
Alien Dust - EP (2021, Faktor Music)
Endless Render 2.0 - EP (2021, self-released)
Anti Body Language - LP (2022, Federal Prisoner)
Simulation Fetish - EP (2024, self-released)
Simulation Fetish 2.0 - remix EP (2025, Bleakhouse)
FLAGRANT - LP (2025, Bleakhouse)

Photo by The Tinfoil Biter
Cover art by Brandon Gallagher

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