Music should blow your fucking mind, and Class Traitor does this passionately. Class Traitor's masterpiece The Images aren't Mine as per Mark J.

 CLASS TRAITOR — The Images Aren't Mine

(Self-released, 2026)

"Naarm's most annoying poorgaze band" — that's how Class Traitor describe themselves on their own socials, and if you're the kind of person who responds to that self-designation with eye-rolling condescension, this record is not for you, and you should go listen to something more comfortable.

For everyone else: The Images Aren't Mine is the Melbourne filthy post-metal/sludgy noise rock quartet's second full-length, and it is, to use the clinical term, a lot. A very specific, deliberate and deeply felt lot.

What the deranged record does is that their debut Calving set up but didn't fully deliver is commit to its own contradictions without apologising for them. There's post-punk here — real post-punk, not the decorative kind that gets name-dropped in Pitchfork previews — sitting alongside sludge builds that would embarrass bands twice their volume, alongside moments of naked emotional directness that most heavy music scenes have trained themselves to avoid. The maniacal vocals are distinctive throughout: forceful and emotional at times, drawing comparisons to Closet Witch and Cloud Rat in their hardcore moments, rabid and yapping at others, earnest and sung outright across whole tracks. The restlessness is apparent through less likely additions — a cleaner sound in stretches you wouldn't expect, post-punk nods, and vocal laments that dominate entire songs.

No point reviewing individual tracks as the 8-track opus is best enjoyed or suffered as a whole album. Listen on decent headphones or at least at home by yourself. 

There's so much packed in across these tracks that a single review pass barely scratches it. The key thing is this: while their component parts are all recognisable, Class Traitor find ways to manipulate and distort those sounds into something genuinely new, and it's both fascinating and thrilling in real time.

The title carries the record's central anxiety: images not being yours, experience mediated through representation until you can't find your own face in the footage. It's terrain that a lot of contemporary noise-rock circles without ever actually entering. Class Traitor enter it and leave marks on the walls.

Three records in, this is a frenetic band whose steps you cannot predict but must track with keen intent.

Music should blow your fucking mind, and Class Traitor does this passionately.

https://classtraitor.bandcamp.com/album/the-images-arent-mine