“The flowers will blossom for me.”
Any discussion with the term “metalcore” requires some dissection. Regardless of your interest in Converge, the term will be applied to you if you’re the most pop-oriented, laptop-driven, breakdown-bridging, ‘modern metal’ band. Paradoxically, if a greasy thrash metal band accidentally created a mosh pit that was just a bit too wide, you can be sure someone at the back of the room will say it too. This at least speaks to the breadth of what the term can encapsulate, and shows that you can find an audience for your music no matter what quirky punk and metal tricks you are pulling. Trench’s own approach pulls us towards the ‘metallic hardcore’ end of the spectrum, bringing in tech(nological) command and a focus on ideas-per-minute musicianship. They’ll waste no runtime with their focused, micro-sized songs. If Trench are melodic, it will come after a long wait, and never in a format that resembles a chorus. Just in time for a new golden age of ‘elevated metalcore’, BETWEEN INVERTED WORLDS is their crushing new album.
Opener “BETWEEN INVERTED WORLDS” shows how Trench have made the band’s soundstage incredibly busy. I had to check I didn’t have another tab autoplaying in the background when I first heard its ending. It’s a blistering and quick start with gratifying delivery (heads will spin to “My soul in separate places / Between inverted worlds”). “NEW SKIN PROTOCOL” hits on some simpler pleasures with its tidy closing breakdown, and even offers a breather-interlude. The soundscape of the record is sci-fi arps and space-like squelching synths; it’s like we’re hurtling up a space elevator that never finished construction. The sonic continuity between 2020’s Blossom and BETWEEN INVERTED WORLDS shows the band have been taking their neon-green cyberpunk aesthetic seriously.
A good candidate for a track to sample from BETWEEN INVERTED WORLDS is “ONE CUT FOR EVERY LOSS”. It takes a more generous introduction compared to the cut-to-the-chase of the start of the record, swaggering in with a relatively slow tempo over a wash of guitars. Piercing squealies and off-kilter drum fills punctuate an otherwise more ‘normal’ moment – a strong reminder that Trench, in every given moment, are doing their best to walk a road less travelled. A title drop begets a furious mid-section and later the opening part sees a reprise, now with a mix of clean and harsh vocals.
Trench have bagged some surprising features for this record. These choices have been made based on the bands they’ve overlapped with on their recent touring history, so it’s clearly a mates affair, not a publicity choice. Trench’s vocals are powerful but they frankly do not offer a huge dynamic range, as they’re screamed down towards the bass end of the mix, so it’s good that a variety of vocal features have been sought. Comeback Kid’s feature on “PATH OF PAIN” is biting – perhaps more of a “nip” as it’s the shortest track. Comeback Kid’s vocal register is the perfect compliment to Trench’s Jay Breen as they duet in crushing fashion. Features from Wake and Cult of Luna are impressive genre-leaps, both adding a new flavour of harsh vocals to the middle of the record. City and Colour is even more left-field (Dallas Green of alexisonfire’s singer-songwriter project), giving his glassy cleans to “DUST TO BONE”.
Front-loaded with its most bombastic material, it’s only at the end that we get some reprieve and our promised melodic resolution. Even before its second half, “FINAL ODYSSEY” sets a chilling tone. When that second half begins, Trench’s own rules are thrown out and an emotive streak sets in. The fizzing synths that coloured the early tracks now pull back the cut-off, and the sonic tapestry turns downcast. “BLOSSOM III” reads the room and carries this energy over, maintaining this serious tone throughout a heavy metalcore track, right up to its lofy peak (“the flowers will blossom for me”). For fans of the debut record, seeing the “BLOSSOM” sequence re-appear here should be exciting. Whereas “BLOSSOM II” saw them become a post-metal band for a key moment, the new “BLOSSOM III” more closely resembles “BLOSSOM I”, providing a souped up version of its enthralling heaviness, and perhaps a conclusion for the ideas that arise on both records.
There’s an undeniable shock factor to BETWEEN INVERTED WORLDS. Metalcore maximalism is proficiently executed across the record, asking for a lot of your attention. Unfortunately, despite the creativity on display, it’s simply true that there’s a lot of competition in this strain of metal and hardcore. Perhaps the busy field of 2024 has left me wanting a bit more from Trench here. I’d hoped that some of the heavier parts would land better, and for more moments that I’d itch to come back to. Still, the forward-thinking fundamentals that construct BETWEEN INVERTED WORLDS cannot be argued with.
7/10
BETWEEN INVERTED WORLDS releases on the 16th August through New Damage Records and can be pre-ordered here.