Clancy

I really, really wanted to like this album. I'm not a TØP enjoyer but Trench was a surprise of an album that I was extremely surprised by. After Scaled and Icy being a disappointment, gearing the openibg teaser straight up yell at you WELCOME BACK TO TRENCH was honestly really promising. However, the album just feels really unfocused in practice.

About half of this album is rapping which feels like by the end of the album these feel like they all blend together by the end of the album. However, the other half feels like a smattering of indie rock styles that are interesting to hear TØP do a lot of these styles, but in practice I just kept thinking about songs I liked better.

Next Semester felt weird to place, My Chemical Romance mixed with Weezer, a bit of Ball Park Music type indie rock and Girl Of My Dreams by The Jonad Brothers? I like imagining this is the same incident as Greg! The Stop Sign! By TISM. Midwest Indigo felt like Lisztomania by Pheonix. Vignette reminded me of that INXS era of stadium rock. Navigating felt like some Franz Ferdinand style dance punk/indie rock and was honestly my favourite song on the album.

IDK, there feels like there was a lot of work put into this album but when push comes to shove, I was mostly reminded of songs I like more... It felt similar to Aurora's Gods We Can Touch where it was very opulent but just doesn't stick afterwards. I'm so sad I want to love this but I just can't enjoy it as much as I want to.