Trash Talk – Eyes & Nines

May 18, 2010 • Trash Talk Collective

I loved Trash Talk's debut Walking Disease, as it was a great example of the fantastic 2000s hardcore punk / powerviolence scene that played the style well without a lot of rehashing. As their second, self-titled album fell flat due to that same rehashing the first was free from, I was a bit wary of yet another Trash Talk album, but I was pleasantly surprised with how Eyes & Nines turned out. It's certainly still the same Trash Talk that I know from their first few releases but they've definitely matured a bit and have thrown some new things into their sound this time around.

Stylistically, the album usually stays pretty close to the band's somewhat-thrashy-powerviolence roots, and these tracks are done pretty well, even though not a whole lot new there is shown off. The songwriting is a bit better than the last album, though; I'm not sure what happened to bring them back. They throw in some odd time signatures here and there which is cool and keeps the songs interesting.

There is also a bit more of influences from other styles. There are quite a few slower bridges and riffs which sound a bit like some chuggy traditional metal or maybe sludge metal, which is pretty neat to hear. It all works really well in contrast to the faster punk sound we're used to. "Hash Wednesday", the most obvious example of this style, is a very slow, doomy piece that goes well over four minutes long and, while it sounds out-of-place at first (especially since the vocals don't sound the same so it's impossible to tell it's a Trash Talk song if you didn't already know), it acts as a nice breather between the opening and closing tracks.

Eyes & Nines packs a heck of a lot into it for being so short, and it's nice to hear a modern band taking this kind of direction with this style. It's not anywhere near a perfect album, and I think Walking Disease is still more fun to listen to, but this one is definitely still good (and fun) in its own way and worth a few listens.

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