Thursday, September 17, 2020

TRAAMS Single Review

SONG OF THE DAY Traams – A House On Fire | The Listening Post a blog to  discover, listen and enjoy music


TRAAMS return with ‘The Greyhound’, in collaboration with Lewis Evans (Black Country, New Road) on saxophone, to open a collection of three tracks set to be released across the coming months, after a brief hiatus.

Melancholic lead guitar enhanced by a slow motorik beat set the stage for Hopkins to lament, “Show me a different way”, which in turn evolves into a charged demand as the song progresses. The ten-minute saga of lush sound seems to fold into itself, unlike their previous single from 2016 titled ‘A House on Fire’, which was far more wired up, unpredictable, and evidently revelling in it. And yet, just like their previous single, the middle of the song is when it seems that the pleasantries are over, and the instrumentals begin to move from creating a mise-en-scene of details to painting a vast landscape of sound. 

The song then drops into its most skeletal form: Hopkins whispers under his breath, the bassline becomes akin to a vital, steady heartbeat, which in turn sets the pace for the drums to slip into a Neu-esque, disciplined beat, only for the discordant guitar to be swept into the background by saxophonist Lewis Evans. Each play of the song demands another listen, and one continues to be surprised upon realising that the saxophone’s rebellion has overtaken the discordant guitars, because of how smoothly the shift has been executed.

The song sustains upon anxiety and control simultaneously. While the vocals and the guitar indulge in woeful decrees of chaos, the bass and the drum beat keep the song measured. Since this is one out of the three tracks they are planning to put out over the course of the coming months, one may possibly expect this twofold capacity in sound to be explored across various themes and moods in terms of lyrics and content, and also experimentations with pace and tone, within the anthology. What makes this song an exciting indicator of the future of TRAAMS, to me, is the element of consistency which TRAAMS seem to accord to every section of it. A product of collaboration that retains an identity without compromise undoubtedly allows one to look forward to more work out of the same environment. Here’s looking forward to the next two tracks, in all its method and madness.


- Nivedita
Instagram: spooncase

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