aaamusic | On 09, Apr 2012

Taking their cues very much from The Cure circa ‘Seventeen Seconds’, ‘Faith’, and ‘Pornography’, Trim The Barber offer up four tracks of echo-drenched moodiness. Tribal drumming, slow bass and keening guitars all float around on this EP in abundance, making for a claustrophobic yet cathartic effort.
‘Occupation’ picks up right where The Cure left inventing some kind of new genre on the two aforementioned albums. Yes, it’s very familiar, that post-punk wailing guitar sound that shimmers into jangling melodies, although there’s the propulsive bite that’s absent from The Cure, marking Trim The Barber out as standing more on the rock end of the spectrum as the song builds in a manner far more forceful than the introspection of the influences. The drumming, through the feedback, seems to even take a few cues from hard rock just as much as the post-punk greats. In fact, ‘Autocue’ goes one step further, injecting a rumbling gothic blues into the squalls and morose vocals. Choppy delayed guitar and loping basslines swirl around a sound that edges close to A Place To Bury Strangers collaborating with Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, culminating into a muffled but not ineffectual chant.
‘Digitalis’ takes us back to the glacial pedal-bothering, with guitar sounds that scream through feedback like claws going down the windowpane and phantom delay chords cutting through a surprisingly roomy mix, the sounds all perfectly matching the lyrics that speak of the way digitised music leads a ghostly existence. Ultimately this sounds like something The Horrors could have cooked up, but the band’s sparks elsewhere save the track from feeling derivative, as does the excellent instrumental outro and fade-out that storms over the last minute of running time. Then ‘Reality’ kicks things into gear with a biting A Place To Bury Strangers sound and hard rock attitude and backbone pitched to perfection, making sure the EP ends with a bang and several shattering cymbal smashes rather than a whimper.

I have had my curiosity piqued by Trim The Barber. On the one hand, they could fall into the netherworlds of “a bit like The Horrors”. But there’s something about them that kicks out against a lazy conclusion. The harder rock that lurks somewhere amongst the feedback and delay creates a powerful driving force to their sound that makes me interested in seeing what they would be like live, something that tends to be an encouraging sign.

★★★★★

Katie H-Halinski