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Furious music with a questionable concept.-
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| Trap Them: Darker Handcraft |
Death Metal, Grindcore
Prosthetic Records
March 15th, 2011
- Day Forty Two: Damage Prose - 2:37
- Day Forty Four: Slumcult & Gather - 3:23
- Day Forty One: Every Walk a Quarantine - 2:55
- Day Forty Three: Evictionaries - 2:53
- Day Thirty Two: All by the Constant Vulse - 3:30
- Day Thirty Four: Sordid Earnings - 1:32
- Day Thirty Three: The Facts - 3:23
- Day Thirty Five: Saintpeelers - 1:15
- Day Forty Six: Manic in the Grips - 0:58
- Day Thirty Seven: Sovereign Through the Pines - 1:36
- Day Forty Seven: Drag the Wounds Eternal - 2:35
- Day Thirty Six: Scars Align - 4:28
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| Review Information |
Release length: 31:05
Review posted on March 12th, 2011
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| | Overall Score: 9/10 |
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| Discography |
Discography covers all information available up to day of review and is updated if future albums are reviewed. |
| Full-Length(s): |
Sleepwell Deconstructor (2007) | Seizures in Barren Praise (2008) | Darker Handcraft (2011)
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| EP(s): |
Cunt Heir to the Throne (2007) | Seance Prime (2007) | Filth Rations (2010)
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| Split(s): |
Extreme Noise Terror/Trap Them (2008)
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| Review |
Trap Them is formed in 2001 in Seattle, Washington, and seemed to stay within the underground "-core" scene. The band spent a good amount of time on a label that dealt primarily with bands of the Hardcore and Grindcore styles, Deathwish Records, among others, including just coming off a brief stint with Southern Lord Records, but recently certain blogging sites had starting kicking up dust about this band. With that, many discovered this act, and the popularity grew quickly. For their third full-length release, Trap Them finds their new home with Prosthetic Records to bring their brand of old-school Death Metal and well executed Grindcore intensity with Punk/Hardcore attitude to the now frothing masses that is their loyal, and new fanbase. Given the attention this band has been receiving on-line, does the latest Trap Them effort stand tall enough to answer the expectations many now have for them?
One thing that becomes very annoying right off the bat about this release is the scattered track titles. While this is nothing to really hinder the album, it's just an annoyance. On their debut album, Sleepwell Deconstructor, the band started to number their tracks by putting "Day x:" in front of them, with X being the track number. It stayed this way on the following EP and Split release, but then for some reason, on their second album Seizures in Barren Praise, it all changed and became varied throughout the recording instead of in a straight line like they started, and it just continued from there. While the music on Darker Handcraft doesn't feel as if it's some kind of conceptual piece based around a following story or premise that spans the album specifically through a period of days, though the previous album has been rumored to be a conceptual piece, leading me to suspect this one is, it's like following the latter Ringu and Ringu-based films by the same writer when they become more sporadic with the time line, jumping around constantly. Granted, it's something you can easy fix with digital playback hardware and CD-Rs, but it's just annoying to feel like you're being pulled around constantly.
That being said, it becomes really important that the music on this release is enjoyable, especially if you lack the ability to try to figure out if a story exists, and how it flows, such as being without a lyric sheet or booklet [which was not provided by the label for this review]. Of course, right from the start, Darker Handcraft becomes a high paced Grindcore fused Death Metal release. The material that starts off the album with "Day Forty Two: Damage Prose" feels like it takes more of a Punk or Hardcore approach through the anger and rage behind it, as well as with the more controlled two-step going on in a much slower pace then what one might expect from a Grindcore track. The general groovey Death Metal sound is there, but it becomes a little void due to the sheer speed and intensity of the song. The vocals are sharp, being screamed with raw energy, varying with a slightly rhaspy sounding approach that seems a little gutteral, but could be from the distortion, which also appears on latter tracks throughout the recording. This track kicks off the release perfectly with it's relentless assault that is greatly enhanced by the rich bass performance that does well with sticking to the general guitar chords, but never really branching off on it's own.
The general flow of the album is basically fast paced music that mixes the foundation of Grindcore with some Death Metal riffs and that groove that some bands bring into that style. That doesn't cover everything though, as the music does eventually slow down, such as the end of "Day Thirty Two: All by the Constant Vulse", which slowly rings into the following track "Day Thirty Four: Sordid Earnings", which just brings confusion to the whole conceptual idea due to the song technically taking place two days later, even though "Sordid Earnings" is simply an instrumental. The slower tempo doesn't really stick around long, as the following track "Day Thirty Three: The Facts" hammers away with that same speed and intensity again, but comes baring it's teeth with fantastic guitar hooks and even a tamborine going on in the background, bringing in a Melodic Death Metal approach to it in the vein of later Carcass mixed with some of today's more popular Hardcore and Grindcore sounds. "Day Forty Seven: Drag the Wounds Eternal" does bring things into more of a march-sounding track, taking away from the blistering Grindcore tracks that dominated both the album, as well as the listener, after "Day Thirty Three: The Facts". However, that marching feel does end up slowing down to come off more as an atmospheric Hardcore song then anything, more along the lines of one of today's Progressive Hardcore/Metalcore bands like early Between the Buried and Me, sounding raw and without being caked in ambience and atmosphere. All of which leads to a suiting heavy, groovey Death Metal track that does ring in a nice atmosphere to it, as well as has chords that sound suspiciously like "Phantom of the Opera" from the Andrew Lloyd Webber play scattered throughout, and actually at the same pace in "Day Thirty Six: Scars Align" as they would appear in the musical.
In the end, Darker Handcraft delivers. While the scattered tracks brings in a questionable certainty to the flow of the album and if it has a conceptual storyline to it, the music is intense and full of the energy that one should expect from an album that takes Grindcore back to it's Hardcore angsty roots. It's mixture with Death Metal throughout, though not a lot to make a huge leap away from such acts as Napalm Death and Pig Destroyer, isn't necessarily the most unique or original approach, but it certainly packs enough high octane music and riddled with energy that you can't find in a lot of albums today. Trap Them show why the acknowledgements they have received lately on the internet are well deserved.
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Digital review copy of this release provided by:
Prosthetic Records.
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