Trollheart

Title: City of Caterpillar
Artist: City of Caterpillar
Genre: Hardcore/Emo
Artist Reaction: Never ‘eard of ‘em
Genre Reaction: Not two of my favourite genres, now...
Familiarity: Zero
Suggested by: Mondo Bungle

And You’re Wondering How a Top Floor Could Replace Heaven: Starts off slow then the guitars and drumming pound in (and I mean pound). Could do without the screeching but I’ve heard worse from vocalists. A lot of energy and to be fair for an eight-and-a-half minute song it went by pretty fast. No it didn’t; for some reason I thought we were on the second track. Anyway the instrumental breaks are really good, a kind of building melody. Quite restrained really, compared to the rest of the track, and it ends really well. Guitar gets almost a mandolin-like feel. Despite the vocals I liked that. Almost a kind of blackgaze? No? Sod ya then. Good though.

A Heart Filled Reaction to Dissatisfaction: This is shorter, by about six minutes. Really like this. Great kind of building melody in it. Vocals are of course terrible.

Minute-Hour-Day-Week-Month-Year (The Faith’s in My Chest): Love the intro to this. Very introspective guitar (yes, I’m back and so is that word! Deal with it!), slow and laconic with sussurating drums, tinkling piano too and a kind of wailing guitar/feedback thing. Have to say, I really love this. Now as long as they don’t ruin it by bringing in vocals. Like two tracks in one, in the middle it speeds right up and, yeah, there they are, the vocals. Oh well. I even like the heavier, more angry guitar here and it develops into something really special. Almost a Tony Banks thing there at the end on what sounds like (but surely is not) harpsichord. Meanwhile, I just ignore yer man: let him shout and roar to his heart’s content. He’ll sleep tonight.

Fucking Hero: Very powerful, punchy guitar and thundering drums, with himself raoring himself hoarse again, but overall very listenable. Is he singing (!) the lyric to Lennon’s song??

When Was the Last Time We Painted Over the Blood on the Walls: Very atmospheric and kind of spooky, horror vibe to this, with a really mad frenetic guitar banging through most of it. Cool. Gets very introspective (there it is again: I got ground to make up) in the middle section and it’s again a really slick little instrumental break before His Screamingness comes back in to kick everything around. Doesn’t ruin it though. Not quite.

A Little Change Could Go a Long Ways: Another (no I won’t do it, not three times in the one piece) gentle and relaxed start, but it’s another nine-minuter so expect some scratchy vocals. Superb buildup on the guitars, starting slow then speeding up to almost breakneck pace, and you know, when the vocal comes in it’s really not too bad. Great track. Again, nine minutes jut flew by.

Maybe They’ll Gnaw Right Through: After a chaotic opening and a tantrum from our singing guy, it settles down into a kind of cold almost industrial vibe, quite threatening in its way. It then picks up again and gets pretty frenetic and really finishes well.


Conclusion: One thing you can say about Mondo is that he has an almost intuitive understanding of where your limits are, musically. Comes with being a gifted musician I guess. Most people would have heard this and said “TH will hate this”. But he knew I’d be able to look past the vocals to find the beauty and majesty in the music. And I have. Great pick, Mondo.


So, Love or Hate? Have to say, overall I Love this.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018