Trident – Chained To Routines CD EP (Elitbolaget)

Once again, I am revisiting older releases from the luxurious catalog of the Elitbolaget, a Finnish record label. As you may know, after all the reviews I posted in the past, Elitbolaget specializes in releasing extreme music. Also, the band I will talk about today is no stranger to these pages. I previously wrote a couple of lines about Trident when I revisited their earlier recordings. Today, I would like to get back in time and talk about their second demo, Chained To Routines. It’s a pro-printed CD-R release with eye-peeling artwork that later on ended up as a part of the Pugilism demo collection. Whenever you decide to pick up a separate release or the entire demo collection, I am assuring you won’t be disappointed.

Chained To Routines carries even more abrasive sound than their earlier demo recordings. It somehow sounds quieter and dirtier than Jezebel EP, but don’t get me wrong. Trident nails it hard from scratch to finish. As soon as you hear introductory guitar shreds and beats, you’ll notice Trident sounded like unstoppable machinery. It also seems that this material introduces more sludge metal into their sound. They still possessed that recognizable metalcore/hardcore sound, but the riffs are more sludgy than before. Also, the song structures, arrangements, vocals, everything leans much more towards a mixture of hardcore and sludge metal.

Of course, this counts as an improvement because the band sounded heavier. These guys pushed themselves to the point where you cannot stumble upon bad moments in their songs, and if these songs went through mastering and post-production, they would sound better than half of the recordings that emerged back in the day. Also, metal to hardcore ratio or vice versa is satisfying. A trident thought about balancing their admiration towards all extreme music genres. You can hear equal amounts of metalcore, hardcore, and sludge during the entire demo recording. Give these demos a chance, and you’ll not be disappointed. I believe that the Chained To Routines and Pugilism demo collection is still available in physical formats, so head over to Elitbolaget for more information about ordering.