Heavy rock outfit The Violent Hour, the new project from Carla Harvey (ex-Butcher Babies) built alongside Charlie Benante (Anthrax, Pantera), unleashes the morgue-set video for “Already Dead” and announces their debut album Pretty Girls Do Ugly Things, out January 22, 2027. Watch it now and stream the single below.
“Already Dead” captures the darkness of hitting rock bottom and turns it into a declaration that the only direction left is up. Harvey explains: “‘Already Dead’ is about reaching a point where someone has put you through so much that they can’t hurt you anymore. There’s nothing left for them to take, and that can become its own kind of power.”
Vicente Cordero directed the video, which unfolds in a morgue, a fitting setting for Harvey, a licensed funeral director and former embalmer. What begins on an autopsy table quickly turns into a celebration of refusing to stay down, landing somewhere between horror movie and dance party.
Pretty Girls Do Ugly Things spans eleven tracks that blend old-school rock-and-roll grit, indie and alternative soul, and a healthy dose of heavy metal, tracing themes of survival, transformation, and the darker parts of being human. Harvey calls the title track the thesis of the record: “‘Pretty Girls Do Ugly Things’ isn’t just about girl power women behaving badly. It’s almost the thesis for the whole record: good people can do ugly things, beautiful things can come from ugly places, and sometimes you have to get a little ugly to survive.”
After a fifteen-year run co-fronting Butcher Babies, Harvey began writing with her partner Charlie Benante, and the songs came quickly. Rather than chase her past, she reconnected with what first drew her to music: the danger of rock and roll, the sneer of punk, the hooks of the records she grew up on, and the unhinged spirit of the Nineties Riot Grrrl movement. Beyond music, the Detroit native earned a Master of Science in Thanatology, graduated valedictorian in Mortuary Science, and founded a grief-support initiative for musicians and artists.
The live incarnation of The Violent Hour brings Harvey together with lead guitarist Kiana De León, drummer Sasha De León, bassist Jewel Steele, and rhythm guitarist Allie Kaye: five women making loud, feral rock music without sanding off the edges.
TRACKLIST
- “You Only Live Twice”
- “Already Dead”
- “Sick Ones”
- “Black Mud Honey”
- “Screenager”
- “Nice Girls”
- “Sex and Cigarettes”
- “Other Side of You”
- “Hell or Hollywood”
- “Pretty Girls Do Ugly Things”
- “The Violent Hour”
LINE-UP
Carla Harvey, vocals (ex-Butcher Babies, Lords of Acid)
Charlie Benante, songwriting, multi-instrumentalist (Anthrax, Pantera)
Live lineup:
Carla Harvey, vocals
Kiana De León, lead guitar
Allie Kaye, rhythm guitar
Jewel Steele, bass
Sasha De León, drums