Review Summary: …and to the deserters of Barren Praise; those poor unfortunate souls.
The year now is 2007 and after a grim telling of the story of Barren Praise as seen in
Trap Thems debut album ‘Sleepwell Deconstructor’, we get the sad story of the souls who decided to leave the town of Barren Praise and it told in the next saga from the mind of vocalist Ryan McKenney, and a sad saga it is. I introduce you to the next chapter of the tragedy that is Barren Praise, ‘
Séance Prime’.
Séance Prime chronicles days thirteen through seventeen and in these days we get a blast of just about the very best that Trap Them has ever offered, with both experimentation and just down right heavy riff making that takes us through a journey of both punk, grind, doom and death metal. The tone is set to the sound of bleeding feedback in ‘
The Protest Hour’ and right away we get assaulted by D-beat drumming and a dirty distorted bass hook. Then the chaos occurs… guitarist Brian Izzie comes in and with a shouted “Panic!” from McKenney ‘The Protest Hour’ begins. Throughout the entire album Izzies buzz-saw guitar tone is felt throughout with little production from Converges own Kurt Ballous part. The overall sound of the CD is very raw, emphasizing the heaviness felt throughout the album; this could be considered Trap Them’s most heaviest release to date. ‘
Pulse Mavens’ is one of the more catchier songs that Trap Them has put out, with a catchy punk riff followed by an off time drum beat, one of the surprising things that Trap Them is good at. We even see Trap Them dabble into a more experimental phase in their music with a punk influenced quasi-doom metal track found in the sixteenth day in ‘
The Iconflict’. ‘
Citizennihilist’ is a more return to form of the more original Trap Them, throwing in their deathgrind sound as featured in their other releases. The final track on Séance Prime is the song ‘
Wafers and Wine of Sandblast Times’ which is a whirlwind of a track that clocks just short of a minute forty seconds that bashes and hammers its way into the listeners ear drums, taking influence from later Converge tracks just as ‘Hellbound’ and ‘Axe to Fall’, a well crafted and destructive ending to the refugees of Barren Praise.
In conclusion, what we find in Séance Prime is very bleak, extremely heavy, unrelenting and unforgiving. It essentially shares the stories of the poor unfortunate souls who deserted Barren Praise to their fates, and tells of what happens to their very own lives. It is a tragedy written to the tone of buzzing guitars, grind drumming and hardcore shouts. It is also a unifier of genres that blends in nearly every type of heavy music genre ranging from d-beat punk, death metal, grind and mathcore, and doom. What makes this release so interesting is that it accomplishes this with just five tracks and is a essential piece of work that any heavy music listener should have in his/her collection. With this chapter of Barren Praise finished, we can only guess what horrible fate awaits those who remain in Barren Praise.
