“The sophomore slump” or “the tricky second album” are two stereotypes that hang around even though they are continually proven to be nonsense. Void Quest by Trudger enrages the flames fuelling the fire of the pyre those stereotypes rest upon, as after 11 years away they have returned with a stunning second album. Void Quest is an absolute triumph, for a band that hasn’t played live in 10 years the tightness and quality of these nine tracks is simply outstanding.
A blessing and curse of providing a press release with a promo is that it can overtly highlight another artist with too much focus on the similarities which could be drawn. However, there are enough musical points that got me thinking about Mastodon and the jump from Remission to Leviathan and the popularity that followed. Remission is a great album, as is the debut from Trudger, Dormiveglia. However, where Leviathan took Mastodon so should happen with Trudger from the strength of Void Quest. There are touches from the first album that have moved out of focus and instead the pristine and deep recording sound enhances the powerful force of the songs on offer. Musically though, the changes between the albums is subtle but ultimately rewarding and the beauty is in the balance they strike between those.
Never dark enough to be pure sludge and never noodly enough to be considered just metal, or even progressive metal, Void Quest hits perfectly. When ‘Tethered System’ and ‘God Rest’ were released I played them on loop seven or eight times without pause. Here the high points of Leviathan mix with the sounds of Dvne with stacks of riffs, excellent progressions and a thunderous vocal delivery. Elsewhere opener ‘Merciless Sabre’ gave me huge flavours of Earthtone9 in some of their more recent output and is about the closest hark back to the more spatial post-metal of Dormiveglia. Void Quest is an album that has picked the best parts of the past along with a few genres and melded the absolute best out of them. In doing so it should be able to unite fans of those differing genres as well as encouraging in some from others such as post-metal. There is plenty here for all.
Whilst the band drifted apart from 2015 without an intention of a hiatus, a couple of members had stints in Dvne and one can wonder if that has been a catalyst for this resurgence. Either way, Void Quest is something that stands up by itself and fills a perfect hole that was vacated by Mastodon long ago. One interesting aspect from recording is that drums were done last and the resulting performance of Chris Leak is utterly mesmerising. Currently the band has no plans to tour this album, I am very hopeful that if this receives the praise and attention it is due then they may be swayed, it is an album that deserves to experience a live environment. Joe Clayton at Floodlit Recordings seems to have done it again, this is just perfect.
If you can’t wait for Friday the band has a Bandcamp listening party on Wednesday 27th August at 7pm!
