TRAP THEM

"Sleepwell Deconstructor" by New Hampshire's TRAP THEM is an album for those of you with a thirst for old school rooted grindcore crossed with crust punk fury. Forget about studio-polished acts passing themselves off as grind or the mix-and-match noisiness of the failed imitators, TRAP THEM grabs one by the short hairs and proceeds to drag the victim through the painful memories and violent tendencies of a bruised psyche. Originally started as a side project by Brian Izzi (DECEMBER WOLVES) and Ryan McKenney (ex-BACKSTABBERS, INC.),the corrosive unit morphed from creative outlet into full-time war machine, singing up Nat Coughlan (TRANSISTOR TRANSISTOR) and John Heidenrich (ex-GRIEF) along the way. And now you get to enjoy a mouth filled with blood from the 21-minutes of repeated backhands on the 21 minutes of "Sleepwell Deconstructor".

Blending fast blast grindcore and crusty hardcore on songs like "They Followed the Scent of Jihad all the way to Thieves Paradise" and the 44-second "Instant Circulation" with more, um, reflective and slower paced concrete scrapers like "Threatnurse", the 12 tracks (actually listed as days — "Day One", "Day Two", etc) here are performed with all the subtly of a charging rhino. Somewhere around an integrated neighborhood of NASUM and BRUTAL TRUTH residents is where the band spends most of its time, albeit with frequent trips to a crusty hardcore enclave. However, it does not stop there, as the pissed off rants over clean and ominous picking on "Destructioneer Extraordinaire" offers time to revel in the pain of the repeated head kicks experienced during the faster cuts. What makes the disc a real treat though is a sound mix closely resembling the vintage Sunlight Studios treatment, the rumbling bass lines and motoring riffs bringing bands like DISMEMBER to mind.

"Sleepwell Deconstructor" is first and foremost a grindcore album, but the quartet sure knows how to coat a disc with a layer of crusty punk and hardcore. The album is a satisfying and compact, yet relatively diverse, offering that is sure to send mallcore pretenders scampering back to their holes.