Trident - Chained To Routines

"Chained to Routines" is this Finnish foursome's first release, and with it are a lot of good points to build off of, and some things they most certainly need to tweak. This band wants really really hard to be heavy (and this is a trait that I very highly admire), but when push comes to shove (which I'm sure happens a lot during their performances) they don't quite deliver. Don't get me wrong, they are right on the cusp (at points) of a worldwide bangover takeover, but a couple of key issues hold them back on this release that keep them from entering the realm of their neck breaking predecessors.

The main thing that keeps me from sincerely liking this release are about half of the vocals done by Tuomas Pekkola. For the most part I really don't have much of a problem with what he's doing. For roughly 10 of the 20 minutes on this EP the vocals are throaty, raw, and sloppy, which is exactly how they should be. However, for the remaining half Tuomas attempts a pseudo-melodic throaty yell that you'd tend to hear in bands like Disturbed or Shadows Fall if you were ever unfortunate enough to be in that predicament. Not only are these attempts pedestrian at best, but generally they fit over the riffs as well as John Madden teaching a SAT prep course. Furthermore, the band occasionally breaks into a pretty generic chorus riff that feels completely different than anything else their guitars have oozed out, and this to me seems like the idea of a guy who wants to show off his vocal range rather than a dirty Fin who is doing his best to imitate Kirk Windstein. On a side note, the gang vocals they attempt in "Catch the Fire" are almost laughable as they have no presence in the mix whatsoever.

Also, the production hear is just lacking, but not in the way you'd imagine it considering this was a self financed release. Everything is clear and pronounced, even the bass is audible throughout. However, this recording has NO BALLS. The guitars sound extremely thin and digital a lot of the time which masks what otherwise might be pretty decent guitar tone. The guitars were also pushed to the front of the mix in order to achieve maximum riff potential, but the mix up in production makes this a bit of a weak point. Drums, though clear, sound pretty flat throughout. The bass drum sound they chose (because it has obviously been replaced though their is no reason to do that in a band like this) does not fit with the rest of the drums and gets lost in the mix pretty often.

Aside from the aforementioned problems, this is not a bad starting point. The drumming is clean and appropriate with no real miscues that I noticed. Minus a couple snoozers there are some riffs here that could get plenty of people to buy into this band, especially the thrashy parts that are thrown in intermittently. The band sticks to simple songwriting, which jumps out to me as their strong suit. The riffs have plenty of time to breathe and develop within each song and no one, aside from the vocalist occasionally, is trying to do more than what he needs to. Overall there aren't any stand out tracks but there are riffs in each song that make me think this band should continue to write and eventually overcome their current deficiencies. Is it currently worth a listen? Ehhh. Will I consistently seek out new information on this band or their future releases? Probably not. This band is not awful, but I doubt highly that Trident's releases will ever reach rotation for me as I'd rather just listen to Crowbar and the like.

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