Monday, December 8, 2008

Trap Them- Seizures in Barren Praise


Trap Them is a band from New Hampshire. I saw them at the 2008 Maryland Deathfest where they were a late add due to someone dropping out. They played their 25 minute set at around 2 PM. Not exactly prime rocking time. Anyway, they stood out and I really dug their set. When I saw they had just released a new record, I figured it was about time I bought some of their recorded material.

Boy, am I glad I did. This here is one sharp, kick in the balls of a record. It is short and to the point; as lean as a record of this fierocity gets. Trap Them fall somewhere between gindcore, death metal, and crusty anarchopunk. These three things are not as different as some folks may claim, so let's just say they fall into a territory characterized by huge, buzzing guitars, precise drumming, crushing riffs, and a sense of violence and urgency. If you like hardcore or metal, there is something here for you.

A couple of pointed observations:

1) I listen to a ton of metal and punk. These genres are angry musics. It is in their DNA and is the main pillar of their sound. Every metal and punk band sound angry by default because of their harsh genre, but how many metal and hardcore records have you heard where the anger isn't noticable? A bunch. The emotion doesn't always come through. Not the case here. Trap Them sound seriously angry. You can taste it and it primally makes your fists and jaw clench. Visceral.

2) The vocalist is awesome. Ryan McKenney is his name. His vocal style is more of a hardcore shout or scream than a metal grunt. And you can usually understand what he is saying. His voice is a big part of conveying the disgruntled emotions that pour out of this disc.
























"My name is Ryan and I am gonna trap you real good!"

3) If you can listen to the first song and not scream along "The vertigo, the death threats, the funerals, ....they never end" then you and I are different animals, my friend.

4) Trap Them is a great name. It sounds so evil and nefarious. It is much more scary then just picking some graveyard imagery like a million extreme music bands. Like Dark Tombstone or Mausoleum or Inverted Candelabra. Trap who? What are they going to do after trapping them. Creepy.

Buy this. And buy this. And go ahead and buy this. Here is a good spot.
http://www.deathwishinc.com/estore/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=D&Product_Code=DW78v&Category_Code=FRNW

And you can check out some tunes from this page. Click on the album artwork to get tunes.
http://www.deathwishinc.com/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tex,

nice work with the blog.

Panika