Is it still the late 1990s or early 2000s in your head? Do you still keep The Funeral of God and Jhazmyne’s Lullaby in the rotation next to Left Behind, Jesus Piece and Vamachara? Calgary’s Trench are riding that wave with their new full-length, Blossom, that captures the same feeling as many of metalcore’s best albums near the turn of the century.
Blossom is a lean album, which means that Trench don’t get caught up with unnecessary flourishes or overly-long songwriting; almost every song on Blossom is under three minutes and many of them are under two. The best songs on the album are “Living in Salt,” which recalls The Funeral of God in its spastic, bludgeoning nature, and “Hellbent Gate,” a later album cut that features Misery Signals’ Jesse Zaraska on vocals. The album ends with the instrumental “Blossom II,” which sees the band play around with post-rock elements.
“Trench has set out to craft something completely unique with our debut LP, Blossom,” guitarist Cole Young tells Decibel. “Combining sheer metallic destruction, unconventional synthetic programming and cosmic-infused shoegaze elements, we feel Blossom will definitely break some barriers within the realms of heavy music.
“We linked up with Jordan Chase (Oodelally Recordings, Stutterfly) for the recording, mixing and mastering duties,” he explains “and confined ourselves to his remote studio in Kelowna, British Columbia for 10 days. It was this extended period of creative isolation that spawned our first full-length record. It’s our most adventurous collection of songs yet.”
Blossom is out tomorrow, but you can stream it through Decibel a day early. Trench can be found on Facebook.