Trap Them Review

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Death/grind is rapidly becoming one of my favorite sub-genres. It combines the ferociousness of grind core, that spastic chaos that makes it so invigorating and compelling, with the brutality of death metal, the unrelenting heaviness that can bury the listener into an early grave. A relatively newer band that more and more people seem to be getting into lately is the NW’s own Trap Them. Their latest offering just came out and it is every bit as violent and unruly as the critically acclaimed Seizures in Barren Praise, the band’s 2008 full length that really brought the band to everyone’s attention. The raging speed of Trap Them’s aural assault starts from the very first second of the album. A lot of bands tend to lead into the album with an acoustic intro or an eerie atmospheric wall of sound that lulls the listener into a sense of safety before ripping their colons out with blast beats. Trap Them does not do this, they start off their album with the audible version of a crack head running across a dark alley thinking he sees fresh rock lying on the ground. The band does, however, sometimes bring the tempo down to a crawl in order to create a breakdown that is enough to completely rip the listener’s neck clean from the rest of their body. This is expertly seen on “Evictionaries,” a track that is almost completely comprised of one continual breakdown. The breakdowns that Trap Them write are not what most people think of these days, the ones that deathcore bands have raped and made so boring and simplistic that if you don’t enjoy karate kicking in the middle of 200 sweaty, shirtless dudes, they have no use entering your ear canals. While they do create a slower beat, Ryan McKenney, the band’s vocalist, continues his normal throat shredding roar that is so primal and raw that it makes you want to take a shower just to clean the grime off that he spews forth from the speakers. The album continues in much of the same fashion with high speeds that every once in a while let the listener breathe during a short breakdown that quickly moves back into the caustic shredding that will melt the skin off your arms just from holding the album in your hands. If you enjoy total pandemonium that whirls around your head, enters your eardrums, envelopes your body, and rumbles your inner self, then this is definitely an album you should check out.