Troller albums

2016

GRAPHIC – 91%

       An incredibly dark and forbidding album that recalls the best of gothic rock. A supreme mix of Dead Can Dance (“Graphic”), a mix of dream pop Bel Canto and Black Tape for a Blue Girl (“Torch”) and Nine Inch Nails and Pain Teens style Texas industrial rock (the apocalyptic “Sundowner). The masterwork of the disc is “Storm Maker”, which sounds like an angel falling from heaven, struggling to get back in. Amber Star-Goers sings the album beautifully with lyrics that always hit home even though they fade in and out of obscurity.

       The only minor flaw is the overuse of several one and a half to two minute mood pieces that are almost unnecessary or perhaps could have been combined into one track? Regardless, Troller have made one of the best mixes of operatic vocals and throbbing synthesizers I have ever heard, putting contemporaries like Cocorosie and Beach House to shame – both bands I admire a great deal – while adding a touch of pathos that is hard to find in rock music. When the album is over, you instantly want to turn it over and start it again.