Trailer Trash Tracys: Ester - Album Review

Trailer Trash Tracys
Ester
Rating: Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It

With a name like Trailer Trash Tracys, you would think it safe to assume they would be some rockabilly/blues/alt-country style band, playing frat parties and college bars. Surprisingly, this London art-pop quartet deals more with fractured dream pop/shoegaze than anything resembling the aforementioned styles. Coming across like a hybrid between Cocteau Twins' gauzy haze, Mazzy Star's haunting blues, Portishead's gloomy trip-hop, and Sunny Day In Glasgow's sonic experimentation, TTT utilizes echoey, 60s style guitars over harsh, antiquated drum machines, and buries Suzanne Aztoria’s vocals in a thick cloud of reverb. If anything, the band's name, which apparently is getting tons of press about how awful it is, draws you in to see what they are about. Of course, whether you decide to stick around for their brand of damaged artgaze is for you to decide. For those adventurous to ride the waves of distortion, you will be rewarded with an album that evokes so many emotions and eras, and yet feels completely of the now, for those that don't take to their off-kilter sound, you will be left shaking your head as to what all the fuss is about.

Best known for their early single "Strangling Good Guys," TTT follow the shoegaze template a little too closely, marrying droning guitars with interlocking rhythm guitars and burying Aztoria's vocals deep in the mix under cavernous drums.



Being the shoegaze junkie I am, of course I immediately fell for its spell, however, I found where TTT went further with this sound, I was more entranced. "Engelhardt's Arizona" use of a pointillistic approach with its guitars drew me into the song, Aztoria's lonely vocals laid on top of the mix, evoking a torch singer in some louche bar.



One of my favorite tracks, "Candy Girl," takes a 50s girl group sound and morphs it into a pure pop song Elizabeth Frazer was born to sing. I especially love the echoing drums, guitars straight out of a David Lynch movie, and Aztoria's gorgeous vocals.



"Turkish Heights" seemingly takes the rhythm section from the Sugarcubes' single "Birthday" and slows it down to a molasses crawl, dragging guitars across the mix like a metal rake, and punishes the listener with an ever more aggressive drum machine pounding. "You Wish You Were Red," is a lush, almost pop track, that recalls Hope Sandoval without making you fall asleep in the process. The shattered guitars are particularly lovely on this track.



"Los Angered" features one of the loveliest guitar melodies on the record, and Aztoria's aching voice fits well in the track.



Where they twist and turn and add their own spin on the shoegaze/dream pop genres, TTT excels and draws you quickly into their spiraling sound. Had they used this approach on the entire record, it would have been a phenomenal debut. Too often, however, the tracks veer either to being too experimental, or not experimental enough. Album opener "Kiss the Universe" is almost 2 minutes of squonky guitar noodling and moaning vocals, that recalls Sunny Day in Glasgow at their most annoying, and definitely does not set the album up for a good start. "Black Circle" creeps and crawls with sludgy vocals, glitchy twitches of electronics, and a strangely out of place bassline. And "Dies In 55" feels like 3 separate tracks meshed together, none of which really works, the parts rubbing up and competing too much with each other instead of complementing.

Small problems aside, Ester is a strong debut that foreshadows good things to come from this band. Finding the right mix of experimentation with the right amounts of pop savvy will serve them well in the long run. Now, about that band name.......

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.