Tripswitch

Wormhole EP

Written by: PP on 10/01/2012 01:28:27

Tripswitch, a band from the rural areas of UK who have already played at Download, and supported Lostprophets, Skindred, The Ghost Of A Thousand among others, find themselves on the outer boundaries of modern metal on their newest EP "Wormhole", which is also referred to as "Wormhole Orientation Kit" on its artwork. It seems to be inspired by LOST's Dharma Initiative, even containing a statement almost directly lifted from the series: "please take a moment and carefully listen to the information contained within this Compact Disc. Familiarize yourself so that your time here will be a safe and pleasant one" - why that might be the case, I have absolutely no idea.

Anyway, Tripswitch take a progressive rock soundscape not much unlike that of Tool as a starting point, and begin experimenting with a vast array of different sounds and effects on top of it. You're treated to stupid dub step (when does this trend die?) for a moment on the opening track, which also recalls Pendulum in places, as well as other electronic effects which have been laid on top of an almost industrial-sounding atmosphere. To confuse things further, they have a clean vocalist contrasting the ravaging screaming in a dynamic that's not much unlike "S.C.I.E.N.C.E"-era Incubus. There's an alternative / 'different' metal vibe to the whole EP, which is interesting to some extent, but there are some fundamental problems with their expression.

For starters, their screaming is awful. They sound completely forced and like they're coming out with great difficulty, which the listener is made even more aware of as soon as the much more well executed clean vocals come into the mix. Also, the instrumental landscape is all over the place. There are some interesting sound experiments, sure, but so what? Coherency is lacking. All in all, it's a decent EP, but I'm having difficulty in ascertaining who it targets, and what it tries to achieve.

Download: Trojan
For the fans of: effect-laden 'different' metal
Listen: Soundcloud

Release date 06.06.2011
Code7

01 Wormhole by Tripswitch

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