Band:	Trepalium
Album:	Through The Absurd
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	October 04, 2004
A review by:	wrathchild

01. Paranoïd
02. Martyr
03. Necropolis
04. Through The Absurd
05. The Worst
06. Filthy Carcass
07. Backstabber
08. Machine
09. Savage
10. Escape To Death
11. Pain's Threshold
12. Coalesce To Suffer
13. Salvation
+ Necropolis [Live video clip]

Ah, it's good to see a band you know signing with a label and recording an album. In this case, I knew Trepalium for a year, but I didn't really doubt about their success.
Trepalium is a young band from France that plays a sort of brutal death metal, but others have found some power here and there, and listed tons of bands like Dying Fetus, Meshuggah, Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse, and many others... so yeah, it's quite hard to define the music of Trepalium, but one thing is sure: it's good!

Prepare your ears, you'll need some good ones to survive this trip inside madness the band offers you: mental illness and disorder, mutilated body... not my usual cup of tea, but believe me, today's cup tastes much better than most of what I've heard in the genre.
The music is loud, heavy, with many changes in the rhythm, some nice and technical riffs with guitar duets, a devastating drummer VERY creative (one of the best I've heard, even though it sounds a bit mechanical in the album), a voice that suits the songs; well, musically, they really master their subject.
And what is even more impressive in my opinion, is the atmosphere they create: it's not just some morbid lyrics on killing music, it's a real scenery that is created. And their own, their unique touch, which is rare for a first album.

Paranoïd is a great opener, with its speedy intro riff, and songs like The Worst and Savage arrive just in time to brought back some surprises to the listener. The 2 instrumentals, Machine and Salvation, are awesome: a repeated riff to which is added some melody, disturbing in the first one, a bit reassuring in the second.
All the other songs are good and powerful and representative of this "touch".
Some good choices that makes the album appear like a well done dark painting, with each colors at the exact good place.
Moreover, the album benefits from a good overall production, by the guys of the band Gojira (Joe appears on Savage), who apparently were the right people to understand the orientations the band wanted.

As for the video clip of the song "Necropolis", well it's not bad, but short and somehow not as intensive as the band can get live. Still, it's not bad!

I'm not a real fan of the genre, but since the first time I found in Trepalium something special, that made this music stand out from the others. I think it's because of this thing called "creativity", so if you're already interested in the genre, try out this album and explore this good music, and if you want to try the genre out, I can only recommend it to you.
I'm really looking forward for the future releases of the band, they might surprise the world one day!