Album Review: Darker Handcraft by Trap Them

Though they eventually relocated cross-country to Seattle, Washington, Trap Them are surely the state of New Hampshire's loudest contribution to mankind, and the group's third studio album (and first for Prosthetic Records), Darker Handcraft, may well be their loudest contribution yet to the burgeoning crustcore movement (a mixture of hardcore and the death‘n'roll of Sweden's Entombed), which is saying something. Mucho credit for this must go to the catalyzing presence of producer Kurt Ballou, but the biggest reason behind Darker Handcraft‘s superior focus may well lie with new drummer Chris Maggio (ex-Coliseum), who gave the remaining members of Trap Them their first chance to write, rehearse, and record an album with the same percussionist. In any case, pulverizing numbers like "Damage Prose," "Every Walk a Quarantine," "The Facts," and "Sovereign Through the Pines" make one hell of a statement, taking no prisoners whatsoever.

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Nothing’s going to stop you from rocking the fuck out to its deathly charms. Listening to ‘Darker Handcraft’ is like finding positives in tragedy or seeing the beauty in ugliness. You’re not supposed to crane your neck to view highway carnage; a footballer snaps his tibia and you can’t help but watch the replay; you know that horror movie is going to scare you shitless, but you still pay the over-priced admission.

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Over the past four or five years New Hampshire foursome Trap Them has been steadily making a name for itself with a series of albums and EPs that merge extreme metal, grindcore, and hardcore so well that they’re coming very close to matching the visceral, venomous artistry of crossover icons Converge. As they’ve proven on such standouts as 2007’s Sleepwell Deconstructor and 2008’s Seizures in Barren Praise, they’ve got all the ingredients for a classic extreme band: a rhythm section that can groove as much as it crushes, riffs that cleverly combine abrasiveness and catchiness, and a frontman who not only emits a menacing, confrontational snarl, but turns out to be eloquent in his lyric writing as well. Toss in the best producer in the business in, interestingly, Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou, and you know you’re going to get a record bordering in spectacular each time out.

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An album that every fan of extreme music should own. Raziq Rauf 2011 If Darker Handcraft was a fight it would be a massacre to cause a permanent wince to impose itself on the onlooker’s face – but also the kind that’d be utterly captivating. You wouldn’t be able to take your eyes off it. That’s what Trap Them have done with their third album: they’ve written something unreservedly brutal yet completely inspiring.

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