Review Summary: Heavy music based on nightmares that is still easy to listen to.
Rodney Warner or Trigram to all of us in musical masses based on this, his self-titled EP seemingly has some heavy nightmares. And by heavy, I mean really heavy in every respect - heavy in their content and themes and heavy in the sense of the music he has presented them in. And that can certainly present some, ahem, heavy listening. Bearable or unbearable, certainly would depend on the ears of the beholder. Which one is it in this case?
Actually, based on the four tracks presented here, Warner, can actually do well with a wider number of listeners. After all, he does take a cue from some Nineties heavier sound proponents that did make, particularly Alice In Chains, Deftones, Tool and a few others. But musically it seems that he has assimilated such influences quite seamlessly and that he has come up with a sound that at the same time has that crunch, but also the knack for a good melody to carry the tunes through, not making them simply an exercise in heaviness.
Part of it has certainly to do that his nightmares are dutifully shared with him by Brian Mansell who worked with the likes of Leon Russell and Concrete Blonde, who not only is the producer of these tracks but takes on lead guitar and most of the drum duties, doing exemplary jobs on all of them. Warner himself, besides writing all the material takes on the vocals and bass, both of which he does justice. The only other player is drummer Carlos Hernandez who guests on “Bleed Out”.
As far as his lyrical nightmares are concerned, they are certainly that. As Warner tells himself, the project actually came about after one such nightmarish instance in 2016. And that certainly transfers to the songs on the EP. The opener “Assimilate” (the strongest track here) is about a vision of the future where an authoritarian figure tries to take control of his populace through conforming social media, while “Bleed Out” plays like a horror movie that involves relationship violence. And the nightmares continue in the other two tracks, “Entropy” and “Tick Down”.
But with all that heaviness, both in the medium and the message, Warner, or Trigram manages to come up with quite a listenable piece of music. Just don’t play this EP before you go to bed.
