Trenches
No, I’m certainly not talking about holes in the ground or anything else war-related. I’m talking about Solid State’s Trenches, a band that needs a bigger following.
In 2005, Haste The Day‘s vocalist, Jimmy Ryan, announced he was leaving the band to pursue different projects. Two years later, he surfaced again with a band called Trenches, who were signed to Solid State Records, a fairly big label. They spent most of 2007 recording, launched their debut album “The Tide Will Swallow Us Whole” in 2008, toured off that for a bit, and went into hiding. In fact, they were featured on Solid State’s website for such a short time that the label didn’t even bother writing a proper biography for them. If you look up their page on the label, the bio is non-existent. So what happened? Well, I’m far from an expert on the topic, but my guess would be…nothing. The record didn’t sell that well (unfortunately), and the band is currently writing the follow-up, which is due out late 2010.
The reason I’m demanding that attention be paid to Trenches is simple: their album is absolutely brilliant. It’s equal parts instrumental and vocal-driven, equal parts anger and confusion. The band refuses to release the lyrics to their songs (which kinda bothers me) so I can’t tell for sure what all of the lyrics are in this one, but it’s easy to get the feel of it.
The real thing that hooked me on Trenches is Ryan’s vocals. He’s like a carbon copy of Daniel Weyandt’s (Zao) early vocals, and I love that. He can pull off clean vocals and screaming vocals at the same level, which is always good, and he’s backed up by a band that is pure talent. The drum beats are semi-slow and enticing, the guitar is just doomy enough to get you hooked, and the whole finished product comes out great. As a whole, this album is a fantastic way to spend 53 minutes and 57 seconds of your time.
Here, have a taste. This song is pretty indicative of what the rest of Trenches’ body of work sounds like. Watch for 2:26, my favourite point of the entire album kicks in.
So here’s to hoping that Trenches puts out something great in 2010, and captures the attention of a larger audience. Hopefully they tour heavily, and actually come to Montreal.
Trenches, you’re Bloody Underrated.
