Trapt are the sort of band you can’t imagine being anyone’s favorite. On Only Through the Pain, their third record, they do a competent job of writing songs in different rock genres – heartsick ballads, energized guitar workouts, melodic mid-tempo numbers – but frontman Chris Taylor Brown and his crew plow this terrain in a painfully familiar way. A couple of these songs will grab your attention if you’re already a fan of hard rock, but Trapt don’t do much to distinguish themselves among the herd.
Trying to Be Inspirational
As the first single – the distorted-guitar ode to a cheating girlfriend called “Who’s Going Home With You Tonight?” – suggests, the album deals primarily with the emotional turmoil of personal relationships. By naming the record Only Through the Pain and by giving so many of the songs a sense of resilience, Trapt clearly are trying to offer music as a way of fighting through those daily disappointments. But if the slow-motion ballad “The Last Tear” and the heavier “Cover Up” are any indication, the band members – in addition to Brown, bassist Peter Charell, drummer Aaron “Monty” Montgomery and guitarist Robb Torres – can’t summon much inspiration from pain, as their songs predictably move from softer verses into booming choruses.Reggae Beats and Blah Singers
Granted, Trapt do try mixing things up on occasion, but even when they move out of their comfort zone, they fail to express anything original. “Forget About the Rain” bounces along on a reggae beat as Brown uses the exceptionally clichéd narrative device of a rainy day as a way to ponder his general unhappiness. It would help matters if Brown was a more distinctive singer, but on the ballads, his voice is thin and whiny, and on the harder rock songs, his growl isn’t very threatening. In this way, Trapt are simply limited by their singer’s lack of expressive range. No matter how adventurous Brown would like to be as a songwriter, his tunes lack a fiery emotional center and therefore rarely spring to life.A Few Strong Moments
This isn’t to say that Only Through the Pain is a complete disaster. “Wasteland” works a nice Police-like melodic verse into an engaging, angry kiss-off. And despite its hopelessly sappy sheen, “Ready When You Are” is the sort of heart-on-your-sleeve power ballad that can’t help but be effective. But those moments are not enough to compensate for many blah tracks throughout. When Trapt emerged in 2002, they showed an ability at making mildly aggressive hard rock that featured walloping choruses that, although hardly spectacular, got the job done. Six years later, they don’t seem to have significantly evolved. Only Through the Pain makes a lot of noise about turning pain into powerful music, but judging from the results, it’s tempting to conclude that perhaps Trapt aren’t suffering enough for their art.Release date – August 5, 2008
