Trinatyde

Trinatyde is a type of groovy thrash metal (Why do all of my reviews start like this? Can someone pitch an idea other than introducing the band name, and the genre, please?). There's no innovation, but the riffs don't feel "recycled" from any other bands. Guitar riffs are, obviously for the genre, fairly groovy with a "hooking" quality, where there is an accented note, a couple rapid notes, possibly with some reduced emphasis, "hooking" back to the original accent. Vocals sound forced and highly wavering, bass is a somewhat reduced copy of the guitar riffs, and a solid job on the drums create a fairly stable, although not entirely enjoyable ep.

The guitar is a more groovy interpretation on the thrash genre, to the core, it sounds as if the speed and harshness of things are what drive the sound. Some riffs stray into punk rock territory, as the vocals become smoothed over into the same area, "Launch = Failure" is where this is really noticeable. Elsewhere, there are some neat slow riffs on the guitar (just listen to it, we have a link at the bottom in all of the reviews). Finally, there are two, really good breakdowns on this EP, more or less just a riff played on the lower notes and focusing more on the bass, this is particularly noticeable on the aforementioned song. Its in essence, a breakdown for the less core minded metal community, e.g. something you could feasibly headbang to. The bass, as stated above, is unremarkable, pretty much a similar riff to the guitar, but simplified a bit.

The vocals are supposed to be high pitched screams, but when the singer gets high up there, his voice gets quieter, and starts to sound nasally and occasionally cracks and "smooths over" back to his normal tone. The rest of the time, even when the screams are clear and audible, they still sound cliched and overly "angsty". This -core vibe isnt broken up in the least by the lyrics, which sound to be the same kind of melodramatic material i would expect from escape the fate, which is really a shame seeing what these guys can do with guitar.

The drums are somewhat chaotic at times, and somewhat bland at others, mostly keeping the beat, and sticking to genre expectations for any given metal subgenre. The breakdowns use a run of the mill drum fill down the toms to open, and focus on lots of double bass and repeatedly smacking the cymbals to carry out the rest. The beats in the song "black diamonds" are a good indicator of what to expect on the other three songs, somewhat basic patterns manipulated a bit to have some syncopation (term check?), some straight up basic, overused rhythms, and some bland fills. The flipside of the bland fills are the somewhat random uses of the cymbals to add "flare".

Trinatyde's EP shows some neat thrash / groove riffs which could be molded into something great with a better job on the vocals, growls, or clean singing in the lower range of the singers range might compliment things better. As for the drums, they're typical, with some quirks and some better moments. Overall, the EP gets an 8 for bass and guitar, and loses some points on the vocals.

6/10

http://www.myspace.com/trinatyde