The Listener: Darker Handcraft

Darker Handcraft, by Trap Them. Prosthetic Records. 2011.

This post is dedicated to Zee German (who called today and asked, “Did you really call the cops on that woman?”). I have thought about writing album reviews for a while and finally decided to do it with his encouragement.

Welcome to The Listener series. Though I am no musician or student of music, and have never defined or wholly identified myself with a genre as many do, I love good tunes. Though I have written about music in my music video posts, this is the first time I will delve into the realm of album reviews, à la Bobblehead. (I did, however, write a review of Fatboy Slim’s Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars when I was in high school.) Please bear with me.

The first album I am reviewing is a gem I bought on my trip to Minneapolis in January: Darker Handcraft, by Trap Them.

Let’s see — where should I begin? Simply put, Zee German has a background in hardcore punk as both a dedicated fan and musician. He loves anger and angst and hard, provocative guitar, bass, and lyrics — the kind of stuff that reverberates in both your mind and bowels. To him, the Sex Pistols were just a bunch of whiny, spoiled art students. He loves hip-hop, too, and in general has a very progressive, eclectic, and agreeable (to me, at least) taste in music. But his true passion is punk and hardcore rock, the kind that gives Tipper Gore nightmares.

While working at UCI, Zee German shared samples of his massive music collection with me. He gave me Gang Starr, Beastie Boys, and a lot of German hip-hop, but also Slayer, Pantera, and a number of bands I had never heard of before: Propagandhi, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, and Ocean. I liked all of it, especially the hardest, loudest, and angriest stuff. I have always had an affinity toward hard, screaming, driving rock and “the hard shit” tickled me in the right place.

Back in December ’08 he took me to a hardcore concert at Chain Reaction in Anaheim. He had talked so much about the hardcore shows he attended in Germany so I was eager to experience one for myself. The headliner was a band called These Arms are Snakes, but Zee German was more interested in two bands performing earlier: Narrows and Trap Them. We mostly stood in the back, cotton balls stuffed in our ears, though Zee German ventured to the front at one point. Narrows was awesome, but Trap Them impressed me most. They blew me away. Their music was guttural, melodic, and angry. It was beautiful. At the end of their last song, the lead singer dropped the mic, stood with one foot propped on a small speaker at the front of the stage, and repeated the final lyrics with his fists in the air. There was no way anyone could hear him over the pounding drums and bass, and from my vantage point it looked like he was just mouthing the words. But it was incredibly moving; it was haunting in a good way. Before leaving I grabbed a Trap Them sticker and stuck it to my Ikea desk when I got home.

Sometime later, Zee German gave me Trap Them’s 2008 album, Seizures in Barren Praise. Though it could never match the experience I had seeing and hearing them in person, it was pretty damn hard. I listened to it over and over. Fitting for the grindcore genre, it was so hard and angry I could not understand the lyrics.

Trap Them released a four-track LP in 2010 named Filth Rations but I have never listened to it. Nor have I listened to their earlier releases, including such titles as People Don’t Take Pictures Of Things They Want To Forget and Cunt Heir To The Throne. However, I was aware of Darker Handcraft’s release in 2011 and gladly secured a copy from the FYE store-closing sale at the Mall of America.

That’s a funny story — at least to me. On our way out of the mall we happened to pass the gutted FYE and I went in to see what was left. I remember buying Volume 1 of the Valley Girl soundtrack there in 1998 (during my shameful eighties phase) so I went in one last time. I browsed the metal section for Pantera, but all that was left were copies of the album Zee German gave me. I walked around the store and was about to leave when I spotted a divider card with TRAP THEM at the top — in the Pop and Rock section! To my surprise, there was one last copy of Darker Handcraft. Three metalheads were browsing the Metallica leftovers in the metal section and I thought, “Are you kidding me?! Trap Them are in Pop and Rock?” I thought about telling one of the workers, “Look, man. Trap Them shit on Metallica. That is what they do for a living. Yet you have them in the Pop and Rock section?” I could not understand it but did not really care that much (and neither did FYE, apparently). I bought Darker Handcraft for cheap, put it in my MacBook back at the hotel, and sipped Deschutes Black Butte Porter as anger manifest itself in my headphones.

I have written more about the biographical context of Darker Handcraft than I have about the album itself, which I am listening to as I write this. It is probably for the best because I really have no clue how to describe it. Excellent aphorisms from Lars Gotrich’s NPR review include “fast D-beat drums,” “buzzsaw guitar,” “muscular punk tantrums,” and “sinister zombie-walk interlude” (the last referring to my favorite song on the album, “Sordid Earnings”). Gotrich goes on to write, “The latter half of Darker Handcraft largely favors Trap Them's grindcore roots, with pummeling minute-long songs unleashing a swirl of kick-punches to the face.”

Blistering, hard, driving, and furious, Darker Handcraft provided a needed pick-me-up through Ohio during my return trip from Pittsburgh. Who needs caffeine when there’s Trap Them?

Needless to say, this kind of music is not to everyone’s liking. I am sure it truly could give some nightmares. To me, though, it is good music and I encourage you to check it out for yourself.