A Massive and Blistering Record from Tragic Forms
An absolutely massive and ally driving EP from Tragic Forms manages to deliver an impactful soundscape with deepening riffs, memorable and anthemic choruses and hooks, and bountiful energy from start to finish.
The EP is titled The Only True Currency Is Blood, and it certainly doesn't waste a lot of time with its first track, "The Rope", coming in with a massive riff, blending elements of classic and speed metal with dropped tunings and loads of trudging.
The guitar riffs throughout this entire record are absolutely ridiculous. These guys breed a huge and blistering aesthetic with those guitars, and then the whole thing is super tight and powerful.
Now, it's not exactly power metal or power rock, per se. This does blend alternative rock with metal, elements of hardcore, and cinematic undertone at times as well.
A lot of these songs have this spacious and almost vast underbelly that lurks just beneath the surface of fierce riffs and unruly energy.
This is one of those records that you listen to and immediately know that you want to see the band in a live performance setting.
It almost feels like they recorded some of this live on the floor, and everyone involved was just feeding off of each other's energies the entire time.
They managed to capture such a great aesthetic and energy on record so well that seeing them live must be a face-melter.
As the song unfolds, the guitar starts to harmonize, even in the riff itself, and I found that brilliant. It intensifies the music in a certain way and thickens the song up even more.
The vocals are belting out and very melodically driven, but also have this kind of soulful performance in a sense.
Definitely love how the vocalist is able to flow with the mood of the song so incredibly well, and the tone of his voice is outstanding with all the guitar work.
Right from this first track, you know that you're in for something really big. This is going to be a fat EP with a lot to chew on. This assumption is 100% right.
Now, the vocalist can get gritty when he wants to as well. There are loads of sections where he really gets a bit more boisterous and edgy, which is totally necessary because of how heavy the music is.
However, I love how he focuses more on melody than anything else. The performance is always powerful, but those melodies are insanely memorable.
There's also some great screaming and hardcore-style breakdowns that I absolutely dig. The drummer just rolls out with those double kicks and destroys everything, giving off a lot of that intense energy I mentioned earlier, and I do feel like some of the rest of the band really push off of that.
You also have some great production elements that they threw in there to kind of make everything feel a bit more polished, which it certainly does.
Killer halftime breakdowns come with deeper trudging, mosh pit moments; this record certainly has it all.
As a matter of fact, this first track alone has all of that.
This is definitely an EP you want to listen to all the way through, in one shot.
Although that first track bears a lot of the staples you're going to hear for the rest of the record, there are definitely some killer surprises around its corners, and listening to one or two tracks will not give you anywhere near the full spectrum of what the EP has to offer.
"Life from Soul" follows that first track and manages to somehow bring that intensity level up a notch.
This is a song of a different color. It's got a different style of fierceness to it, the vocalist is just shredding, the drummer is throwing in these sick time signatures that add a lot of drive but make it unique at the same time, and the entire thing is rolled out with a lot of thought behind its arrangement.
This is another track that just bursts with this sort of live performance-style energy. When you listen to it, you feel like there's a crowd there.
"Wormhole" is probably my favorite track on this whole thing, simply because it showcases a little bit of classic metal.
Once you get to this track, you can tell that these guys are pulling from a slew of influences that they hold close, and this one really has all of that, as I mentioned before, anthemic sort of choruses and vocals that really take the cake.
This track comes across as a bit of a fists-in-the-air, sing-along kind of banger.
Still, that energy level is just through the roof. These guys don't let up for one single track.
This song, in particular, also has some amazing guitar work in terms of lead stuff, harmonies, and just adding a semi-orchestral metal feel to things.
The closing track, "All In The Hand That You Hold", has a bit of depth to it. This one, to me, blends a little bit of that deeper, heavier metal feel with classic alternative rock and brings back more of that expansive sort of spacious underbelly that you heard in the beginning.
This whole album hits hard. There is loads of edginess, brilliant guitar work, powerhouse vocals, the bass guitar tone is thick, melodic, and addictive, and the drumming brings it all together and adds that fierce, almost rambunctious push with bursts of crazy fills, amazing kick drum work, and punch.
A lot of this record feels melodic and sort of flowing; they do get heavy but still elegant at times, but other parts of the record hit like whiplash.
This is a record that feels like a sucker punch to the gut, and I mean that in the best way possible.
When it's over, you want to start it again because you want to go back to certain parts of songs to hear them once more.
It's one of those records where you listen to it in the car, and you point at the speakers when crazy parts come up.
I've missed that, and I'm super happy to have it again.
If you love heavy metal, alternative rock, hardcore, powerful, forward-moving, and smart songwriting, do not miss this record.
I'm only going to say that once; the rest is up to you.
Dive into this EP right now and don't be afraid to turn it up because that's how it was meant to be heard.
