Trigger hail from Melbourne, and ‘Cryogenesis’ was released domestically in the summer. Is the world ready for a sci-fi influenced concept album? The band say of their musical ambitions, ‘our vision for the album was to bridge the gap between European and American influences, as well as the classic and modern aesthetics of metal. We wanted this to be a dynamic release that highlights the variety of the metal subcultures and throws them into a melting pot.’
Well, they certainly manage to get the full range in there, although how successfully they meld them together is questionable.
It comes on full-throttle thrash on the preposterously bombastic opener, ‘The Forge of Hephaestus’, although the impact is undermined somewhat by some big emo chorus breaks and some badly proggy guitar soloing. Elsewhere, post-hardcore tropes of melodic clean vocals juxtaposed with roaring gutturals collide with 80s hair rock guitar histrionics. And a lot of it’s just out-and-out awful, overblown toss.
The conceptual element perhaps doesn’t help with the albums dynamics. Going all high-concept places the album, and the band, on the dangerous precipice of preposterous pretention before the first note, and none of the staccato rhythm guitars and the Brian Mayisms help when they’re singing and snarling about gods and battles and this mortal coil, and all of this seriously undermines the heftier chug and scream passages. Ultimately, any album which features songs called ‘Veins of Ambrosia’ and ‘DeluZion’ and ‘Dysphoria’ and not even the vaguest trace of irony is never going to achieve world domination.
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