Trophy Scars – Darkness, Oh Hell

After their defining masterpiece, Bad Luck, New Jersey post-hardcore experimentalists Trophy Scars pick up where they left off with their new EP, Darkness, Oh Hell.  Bad Luck boldly took the band down a dark new direction, and this time around the band expands on that previous innovation.  The result makes for a deeply thematic six-song journey, albeit on a much more abridged and concise scale.

Darkness, Oh Hell opens with ”Sauvez-moi De L’Enfer,” a short introduction weaving a tale of temptation and fall from grace.  The cover art’s immaculate portrait sits smugly coated in a layer of after-the-fact blood splatter, depicting a nameless victim whose choices resulted in a lifetime of unsavory consequences.   “Save me from hell/save me from myself” floats the delicate female whisper of what is surely the ghost of one of the disc’s many hapless victims.  Beneath the haunting vocal beauty faintly seeps a prophetic devilish grumble, in effect introducing listeners to the subtle nuances lurking within each track’s instrumental tapestry.

After such a magnificent opening, the band fulfills their promise of intrigue with a twisted narrative enhanced by their remarkable instrumental sensitivity.  “Nausea” clamors in with a seedy bar-scene blues meets big band grandeur showstopper ushering in Jerry Jones’ scheming growl and hoarse murmur.  Jones is one of a kind – shy for his obvious Tom Waits inspiration – and he absolutely commands the act with feverous emotion.  That being said the album speaks well even in his absence, in which the shadowy array of harmonized organ, piano, horn sections, and highly stylized guitar riffs further each tale in the absence of words.  I’ll mention “Sad Stanley” and “Time In Heaven, Forever In Hell” as stand outs by name, but knowing that the disc works as a whole, their success comes implied.

Thematically there’s also much worth praise, but discovering the details first hand is half the fun, so I’ll limit the spoilers.  That being said, the antidepressant titled song “Trazodone” presents one chapter too good to ignore, so I’ll apologize in advance.  The track speaks of a man’s midnight rendezvous with the devil in his dreams, his resulting slip from sanity, and resulting suicide.  “There’s a man, in my dreams, he’s silhouetted by the doll’s soft gleam, he lights a smoke, he shows his teeth, he tells me son ‘I’m the devil you feed’” Jones mutters, after which the protagonist dismisses the encounter only to burn himself alive upon finding a surprise in his bathroom mirror.   From mental sickness to the slippery slope of addiction, the album succeeds in revealing real worldly demons.

“Time In Heaven, Forever In Hell” ends the disc echoing the lesson learned by the disc’s characters: that giving into momentary pleasure can lead to a lifetime of regret.  “These pills won’t help me fall asleep, these pills won’t make me fall asleep” loops the band for the EP’s final moments, echoing each victim’s tortured fate.  It’s haunting, unsettling, and just somber enough to get listeners to tread cautiously in their own lives.  Not often can a band bridge such moralistic and personal connections, but Darkness, Oh Hell proves ever the sobering exception.  Those who just couldn’t get enough of Bad Luck should findDarkness, Oh Hell a natural and thoroughly enjoyable continuation.