Trophy Scars – Alphabet. Alphabet.

This is fairly interesting album, to say the least. People must be getting supremely bored with the way music is heading because it seems that a band like this is springing up every couple weeks. Trophy Scars is the kind of band that seems to be trying to blend dozens of different styles together to get a mix aimed at pleasing those getting tired of their favorite bands. I’ve never really been big on these musical amalgamations, but I can think of a bunch of people I know that would probably enjoy this album.

Their sound is fairly interesting; their guitars are constantly changing in and out of clean and distorted channels, there are some pretty neat riffs too. It kind of gives it that whole “indie band” feel. The drummer is kind of background noise, the same with the bass. Trophy Scars has got to be one of the most vocally driven bands I’ve come across in a while. This is bad news for me, namely because I really don’t like the way the vocals sound, but it’s no big deal (different strokes for different folks, if you will). My beef lies in their inclusion of rap into some of the songs and that the music gets boring. Sure, a slow song here and there is fine and if you’re in the mood for slow music, it’s nice. But when all I want to hear is something with a fast pace, this is not the album you should be spinning in your cd tray. Just like playing metal after metal song becomes overbearing, playing song after song of this begins to wear me down and starts putting me to sleep. As for the inclusion of rap, I’ve never been a rap fan; I think I had a handful of joke rap songs on my computer in grade nine. But beyond the odd song when I was 14 years old, or the end of Green Eggs and Ham (it’s a Ludichrist song, their bassist raps the last half, listen to it, it’s fantastic) I never listen to rap. It’s safe to say that hearing it on this album took me quite off guard, not to mention it felt way too out of place.

To sum up, besides my obvious problems with the vocals and the continuously painful slow pace, this album was tolerable. Although I may not be playing it over and over, a song here and there wouldn’t hurt me. It’s a decent change in music that bands often take a very linear approach to. For the most part I didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics, but they seem to be mostly about love and drugs. The latter topic I’m not really big on hearing about, I’ve got a pretty hard anti-drug stance going for myself (not to mention, 80% of my favorite bands are straight-edge). Regardless, I tried my best to ignore the lyrics, being that they’re fairly sappy.

I suppose hunting down this release wouldn’t be that bad idea if you want to check out something a bit different than the norm. But I can say without a doubt, that had I not been given this, I never would have even bothered listening to it. I’ve said it once, I’ll probably say it many more times, this kind of music just isn’t for me.