Formed only nine months ago, Barnsley five-piece Trudger have done what no band does on their first attempt and have released a debut EP that blows everything and everyone else out of the water.
The band is made up of members of short-live aggresive metal band Debts (check out their amazing Demo here) and this astounding new EP was recorded only a month ago at Silent City Productions in Leeds. Motionless In Dirt is an absolute tour de force of aggression, mammoth bass heavy production and a tirade of vocals which switch at will between post-hardcore and booming Blackened-Death.
Opener, The Opaque Light starts off as if Mastodon had never grown up listening to Rush as kids. The drums are pulverising, the riffing is as good as anything Meshuggah have churned out and the vocal delivery here is crushing Behemoth backed by the growl of Wade MacNeil or Everytime I Die’s Keith at his most vitriolic. At the three minute mark, dust settles in a Jesu-like moment and it would have had a welcome stay for a few minutes more but instead ends at four minutes twenty two and that track is perfect in execution, production and is a fine example of original song writing.
Second track Misery Labyrinth is another brutal depth charge; while not as sonically pervasive has the opener; it’s still totally relentless and reminds of the sounds of Soilent Green or EyeHateGod but here once again, the vocal harmonies really make this stand out as something unique.
Closing track, the epic ten minute Crusade on the Tides of Hades starts with a clean guitar – something similar to Machine Head’s Halo – then pummels straight into the heaviest sound to ever come out of this town. Coming across like Decapitated playing with Gojira until the tracks fizzes out hail of ambient fuzz.
What Trudger have done here, is not only created one of the finest slabs of metal I have heard in a long time but they have fuses together perfectly Blackened Death, Doom, Sludge, Technical Prog and Post-Hardcore and the last time I heard an album do this so successfully was probably Tombs’ Path of Totality.
This EP is essential and comes from a band that, assuming they can pull this sound of live, have all the potential to be fucking massive. This is a fine achievement and I really look forward to more.
Alternative Barnsley 