Darker Handcraft

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. And even though the Entombed comparisons become all the more inescapable when Trap Them finally eases off the throttle for the likes of "Evictionaries," "Drag the Wounds Eternal," and "Scars Align" (most) everything is forgiven because the songs are just so good, maybe better and more distinctive than the surrounding juggernauts, actually. Alas, not so the plodding instrumental fragment "Sordid Earnings," which comes out of nowhere and goes right back there, but then there's the blazing grindcore of "Saintpeelers" to swing momentum the other way. Potent stuff, any way you slice it. And even though some veteran bangers might feel that this crustcore craze is too good and/or creatively limited in scope (for now at least, bring on the innovators!) to endure for long, Trap Them and their ilk are bound to leave many happily damaged eardrums before they runs their course.