Review Summary: RIP
Oh Trapt. I want to like this record. I really do. I was one of the most excited fans for this new album, as I really enjoyed No Apologies, and thought Reborn was decent and had some good tracks on it. Of a lot of the nu-metal and alternative rock/hard rock outfits that came from the late 90s and early 2000s, this band genuinely stuck out to me, and I have consistently thought of them as one of my favorite guilty-pleasure bands.
It seems like Trapt have really lost their sense of direction. This new album DNA has solidified that point. I think one of the major problems of the album is that there doesn’t seem to be any emotion. Thematically there is little to nothing of substance, and tonally I am not convinced that Mr. Chris Taylor Brown has any emotional impact behind what he sings apart from a few moments on the album where his voice actually sounds decent, such as in Passenger, Tangled up in You, Anchor, and parts of It’s Over. In fact, I think these are probably the only set of passable songs on the album as well. Passenger has easily the most interesting instrumentation, which says much because the verses are pretty much a wash and bore me to hell. What saves the song is the choruses which harmonically sound pretty good, and the interlude and breakdown after the second chorus. Specifically in the breakdown, I really enjoy the way Brown delivers those lyrics. The latter half of the song in general really makes the song worth listening to.
It’s over is pretty much just OK. It works for a breakup song I guess, but it doesn’t really impress me all that much. I don’t hear anything worth bringing above an OK. Tangled up in You really frustrates me, because the verses sound so mediocre, but I enjoy the interlude between the verses and choruses so much that I put up with it. Excluding the verses, the song is actually probably tied for my favorite on this mess of an album with Passenger, as the vocal harmonies do enough to support Brown’s lackluster vocals, and the guitar work adds a lot to make the song significantly more enjoyable. A close second would be Anchor, which isn’t by any means a great song, but thematically is unique enough that I don’t feel bad listening to it, and the riffs are decent enough.
Apart from these four passable songs, everything else is pretty much disposable. Human (Like the Rest of Us) is completely ruined by the “oh whoa” repeated in the opening riff. And even without them, Brown’s vocals are so uninspired it is actually frustrating. The instrumentals are decent, especially the drums, but the song itself is boring, and borderline unlistenable. I can’t even talk about the rest of the songs on this album. I’ve suffered through listening to it about four times and they’re such forgettable filler that even looking at the tracklist I can hardly remember which song has which recycled hard rock riff or down-tempo rhythm. I recommend not even bothering with the last four tracks on the album, Changing Hands, or Unforgiven, which for Christ’s sake has the worst intro I think I’ve ever heard, and also isn’t even a goddamn word
I have nothing more to say aside from the fact that I am really disappointed. I wanted to see another No Apologies, but instead got a worse version of Only through the Pain.
