{"id":30779,"date":"2013-02-25T13:26:03","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T13:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-trails-signs-ep\/"},"modified":"2018-03-11T01:32:30","modified_gmt":"2018-03-11T01:32:30","slug":"album-review-trails-signs-ep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-trails-signs-ep\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Trails – Signs EP"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"The suburban town of Guildford doesn’t have a lot to shout about musically \u00a0currently existing (stunningly) punk band The Stranglers hailed from there, and its local festival, Guilfest, which had frankly bizarre lineups that saw James Blunt and N-Dubz rub shoulders with Funeral For A Friend and Gallows, has now been cancelled. Young quartet\u00a0Trails<\/strong>\u00a0here emerge from the Surrey’s sleepy county town with all guns blazing, here releasing their second EP ‘Signs’<\/em>, following on from last years self-titled EP.<\/p>\n

Trails<\/strong>\u00a0seem to be suffering from an identity crisis, where they lurch from one musical style to another, never settling and changing up more often than a chameleon on a rainbow. This scattergun approach works for some bands, but pinning\u00a0Trails<\/strong>\u00a0down is like nailing jelly to a wall, and the listening experience is about as pleasant as eating the resultant floor-food. Take preceding single and opener, the vowel-less ‘SHT FKR’<\/em>, for instance. It launches in with the kind of “lad-pop” touted by the likes of Don Broco and Blitz Kids, but then it stumbles into the sort of cracked-vocal, soaring chorus Thrice might be proud to call their own. After a\u00a0cacophonous\u00a0two minutes, it ends on an a capella bit that would sound brilliant on the back of a six-minute slow-burner, but just plain bizarre after such a short number. The oddness has only just begun.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

‘Can’t Slow Down’<\/em> restores a little normalcy, combining jaunty mathy-pop in the vein of Gunning For Tamar and Tellison with a heavier edge more akin to Scholars or Reuben, but jarringly ends on a grandiose effects-pedal freakout that really should’ve been left in the practice room. ‘It’s All Gone’<\/em> is where the Thrice influence rears its head once again, this time clashing with the sort of limpid, radio-friendly vibes of a Young Guns or a Deaf Havana; two worlds that should never meet, but somehow have here, and the result is messy, to say the least. The changes of pace on this record are alarming – after a fairly mid-paced number, the eponymous track ‘Signs’<\/em> comes crashing in loud and fast – a wee bit of a belter and a record highlight it may be, but it feels like being unexpectedly gored by a rhino. After this display of brawn and muscle, ‘Sinatra’<\/em> is a slower number, which brings on their very best Brand New impression, but lead singer Sam’s vocal sounds horrible here – the cracking from clean vocal into roar is wince-inducing.<\/p>\n

The most important thing\u00a0Trails<\/strong>\u00a0can learn, it seems, is a little self-control. It’s not that the ideas here are bad, or even that badly executed (with the exception of the vocal on ‘Sinatra’<\/em>, there’s just too many of them crammed into too tight a space. Concentrate on stripping things back and make things far more cohesive, and\u00a0Trails\u00a0<\/strong>could be onto a winner – however, for now, there is just far too much going on. Chucking everything in including the kitchen sink does not good music make – ADHD kids might love this, people that dislike being chucked into a musical blender will not.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
2.5\/5<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
‘Signs’<\/em> by Trails<\/strong> is out on the 1st March on Lockjaw Records<\/strong>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Trails<\/strong> links: Facebook<\/a>|Twitter<\/a>|Bandcamp<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Words by Ollie Connors (@olliexcore<\/a>)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The suburban town of Guildford doesn’t have a lot to shout about musically \u00a0currently existing (stunningly) punk band The Stranglers hailed from there, and its local festival, Guilfest, which had frankly bizarre lineups that saw James Blunt and N-Dubz rub shoulders with Funeral For A Friend and Gallows, has now been cancelled. Young quartet\u00a0Trails\u00a0here emerge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8181],"tags":[5879,1364,150,11724,5942],"class_list":["post-30779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-post","tag-album-reviews","tag-lockjaw-records","tag-music","tag-signs","tag-trails"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAlbum Review: Trails - Signs EP - Already Heard Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The suburban town of Guildford doesn’t have a lot to shout about musically \u00a0currently existing (stunningly) punk band The Stranglers hailed from\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Album Review: Trails - 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