Trap Them

Trap Them’s last, the awesomely-named Sleepwell Deconstructor, was impressively heavy but too bogged down in technical grind and hardcore flurries to be memorable. The New Hampshire-based band apparently realised that and with Seance Prime have stuck to the d-beat hardcore chug and speedy, near-death’n’roll sounds they only flirted with previously. And does it ever work. This 15-minute EP is buzzing with energy and a chainsaw-as-guitar sound that Entombed would die for. Later-era Entombed is actually a good reference point but so is His Hero Is Gone, as Trap Them come up with a sound that crust punks and death metal dudes can enjoy equally. In Canada, we have Cursed, and in the States, they’ve got Trap Them. With a killer production job from Kurt Ballou (does this guy ever do wrong?) this is as perfect as EPs get, marred only by a slight redundancy to the songs. But hey, at 15 minutes, who cares?