Holy Crap. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that response to an album, I can tell thee. But respond I did when I first heard No Trigger. While this sort of melodic hardcore/skate punk crossover stuff is done with some fair regularity. It takes a truly spectacular band to stand out from the pack. For every A Wilhelm Scream, there’s a Deviates, for every Pipedown, there’s a Riddlin’ Kids. Well chalk one up for the winners, dear, for No Trigger has joined the elite.
The two aforementioned bands (AWS and Pipedown that is, not the other two) are the easiest comparisons to make when talking about No Trigger‘s sound. Crunching guitars, palm muted in all the right places, perfectly placed gang vocals and a vocalist who compliments the music with aplomb (sounding mildly English in places … which is always a bonus) combine to create the most invigorating music known to man. Well, to my ears anyway…
Lyrically, they remind me of a less overtly-political Closet Monster, or RedLightsFlash if they were native English speakers, taking their cues from socio-political subject matter and creating memorable lyrical nuggets without resorting to blatant sloganeering. ‘What We Became’ sets the scene expertly, opening with buzzsaw guitars and building to a satisfying climax, before drifting into very Pipedown-esque opening of ‘North American’, a 90 second onslaught with what can only be described as a ‘killer mosh part’.
However, it’s ‘Earthtones’ that truly sets this band apart from their compatriots. In stature, this is similar to A Wilhelm Scream‘s ‘The Rip’, that one song that, while sticking roughly to the formula identified by the band in question, continues to blow you away every time you listen to it, which, if you’re me, is a hell of a lot. It’s the kind of song that constantly throws up surprises, from the mazy guitar solo over the chorus to the textbook outro that will literally send shivers down your spine. This is my new token mixtape track and I can honestly predict that I will never, ever get bored of it.
Simply put, No Trigger are the balls. I just found out that Nitro Records have snapped them up for their next release, and you can definitely see why. Skate punk bands haven’t been in fashion for a long time, but there will always be a market for this kind of exhilarating music and No Trigger should be at the forefront of the next revolution, no matter what happens.
www.notrigger.org
http://www.bigmouthjpn.com
Ross