The New EP from TRYSTE Has Arrived
The awaited EP from TRYSTE was finally released today, and one of the main reasons I've been waiting for this one is because this band has such a great way of taking some of the best elements of heavy-handed alternative rock, sometimes metal, and loads of shoegaze, creating these huge atmospheres all the time.
The EP is something that serves as quite a massive Journey and they certainly don't hold back from delivering gigantic songs that showcase a lot of that vastness but also the heaviness, riddled and laced with emotional backbone almost the entire time, and hitting with a certain level of elegance in the performances that have a strange way of putting you there in the moment, with the songs themselves.
The EP is called To Rise You Seek The End, and is a five-track release spanning over 33 minutes in length.
Tracks like "Abandon" open the door for everything. It serves as a huge introduction to the album and does indeed share some of the beautifully robust, edgy, and heavy elements, along with those spacious and expansive underbellies, all in one song.
One of my favorite attributes about this band is the drummer. The guitar work is outstanding, giving loads of different textures and tones throughout the record's course, blending that heaviness with the mellow and subtle delicacy of clean guitars and spacious notes that flow through the ethers of songs on an almost constant basis. But the drummer is just amazing and has such a cool way of pushing songs forward and bringing a certain level of intricacy to them so that everything about it has this sort of graceful touch.
These are all staples that are very evident throughout the record.
This first song gives you that right from the start. The drumming here is amazing and really sets the tone because it's got a slower, more widespread rhythm, but there are tons of ghost notes being hit between those. A lot of high hat work makes things sound, not frantic, but sort of intense, while the super mellow and flowing tones of the other instruments take place.
I found this to be such an interesting combination.
"Abandon" is the second track on the record, and the previous is called "The Long Journey", which serves as an 8-minute opus of cinematic and thriving songwriting that does still bear loads of emotion but has a way of pulling you into that atmosphere I was mentioning earlier.
The vocals are drenched in reverb effect as some of the other instruments are, but they are very again, emotionally bound. The performances have a heavy heart and really express a lot of genuine heart. At first, they are more subtle, then they grow and start belting out more. Things start getting more intense, then finally everything sort of explodes into a more sonically driven soundscape, bringing out the heavy-handed shoegaze approach and aesthetic.
Their songs managed to build in these amazing ways, and by the time you get through the first two, you begin to get an understanding of their songwriting approach and style, and start looking forward to what comes next.
"Pipe Dream" is a gorgeous track and certainly portrays a lot of how they can utilize their instruments to create something with an ambient undertone that can burst into melodic heaviness at any moment.
You can feel those moments coming through. Once you understand their songwriting, you can feel when those explosive and more climactic moments are coming in the songs, and you sort of hang on to them when they happen.
I love the vocals on songs like this because the singer uses his head and chest voice throughout the record. When he uses his head voice, he's able to have this more graceful sort of flow and hit beautiful notes, creating melodies that are insanely memorable and also build even more on the emotion of the songs.
When he's using his chest voice, he's belting out more, and that has a different range of emotion and pitch, but still works to pull the mood and emotion out.
The whole EP is massive; again, it spans over half an hour, but it is quite an experience to swim through.
These guys really nail the shoegaze elements perfectly. They're able to perform such edgy and heavy riffs without losing any melodic push, and they come across with great levels of intensity.
Listening to this EP is like watching a movie. It's a full experience, especially when listened to with headphones on.
Now, I'm no stranger to the band as I've been lucky enough to have reviewed a single before this release, and once this EP finally dropped, it was more than I expected.
I knew what I was in for, but the depth of how big and intense some of them became was just brilliant.
I would definitely take a deep dive into this EP as soon as possible if I were you.
Either use headphones or just turn it up. Either way, you're going to get a lot of that brilliantly vast atmosphere to take in, and it's quite an escape.
Check this out now so you can see exactly what I'm talking about
