Aucklanders Trust Punks have carved out a healthy reputation over the past 18 months, and now they have debut album Discipline under their belts. It’s a strong showing too, with twists and turns aplenty as they deploy their melodic post-punk sound across seven songs in a brief 24 minutes.
Their range and ability to blend dissonance and melody are the cornerstones of the band’s sound. Notes are wrestled from strangled guitars like their probable heroes Sonic Youth, while the underlying rhythms cut jagged math-rock shapes and intricate patterns that are as crucial to the songs’ dynamics as the guitar and vocal detailing. Main vocalist Alexander Grant carries a varied palette from oohs and yelps, to urgently emotive and melodic passages reminiscent of Sunny Day Real Estate’s Jeremy Enigk, particularly on songs such as ‘Prone Hold’. He knows, as all good singers do, when to sing and when to sit back, sometimes for long periods, and let the music shape the mood and colour of the song. As a nod, most likely unconsciously, to those fellow countrymen who carved out similarly skewed indie rock, the closer ‘Enemies’ sounds like a collision between S.P.U.D and Straitjacket Fits with its wonderfully lurching rhythm, molten guitars and belligerent and incoherent guttural vocals.
There is plenty to like in the economic yet sprawling sound on Discipline and the short album length is by no means a negative feature. By ending just as you start remembering how great your Fugazi records are and how perfect the first At The Drive-In album was they leave you wanting more. Hopefully this is just the start of what promises to be an interesting musical journey from the quintet.
