Trotoar - No Salvation (2020) Hi-Res

A duo of insurmountable valor and merit, TROTOAR, — technically a supergroup — is a musical endeavor with an incredible size and atmosphere to it; the debut, “No Salvation” contains a myriad of tracks which spans a torrent of different musical shapes and ideas all contained within the walls of Heavy Metal.

The album opens up utilizing its title track, “No Salvation” which itself casts a grand sense of intrigue, mystique, and triumph upon the listener as the track plays out. The song starts on a full set of instruments but shifts to a solo rhythm guitar after the first note in an anticipate build-up for the verse. “Far Away From Home” follows the onslaught of the preceding track with a slightly greater focus on the intricacy of the rhythms. The next song on the list, “Demons In Your Mind,” is on the heavier side, a bit more simple than those that came before but also carries with it a stronger sense of unity as the variances between the panned guitars is significantly more distinct. “Shining Star,” combines multiple elements of songs before it the stereoscopic guitars, intricate transitions, staccato chords, and dynamic shifts to name a few. A great outro and even better groove, “Unbound,” is the track which finishes ties an exiquistely spiked and jarring bow around the whole of the LP containing within its heavy walls depressing modulations, grandiose dynamic shifts, and with a succinctly hastened ending.

The instruments are captivating to say the least, and well attuned to the motifs and explicit symbolism for which the music attempts to convey to broaden that definition a bit. The drums are exceptionally balanced such that each piece of the kit feels that it pops within your ears, that you’re listening to the whole of the drum set in the same room that it was recorded in. The guitars are gritty and reaching choosing clarity over heavy saturation. The bass is powerful, thick, and fills out the bottom end without bleeding into the guitars or drums. Singing wise, Linnea Landstedt, reminds me a bit of Grey DeLisle such that the vocals are broad, sweeping in a sense, and have this sort of sharpened fragility to their tinged edges, something that only really strikes the listener during the vibrato sections. The delivery of the vocals is exceptional and powerful wherein each syllable is stressed with equal weight and clarity, a practice whose application is more in line with that of a professional orator than a singer.

The whole of the album takes the listener along for a ride consisting of headbanging and triumphant resolution with an eldritch ending. As a debut “No Salvation” does well to encapsulate the different attributes of the duo’s repertoire and is sure to grab a stranglehold of anyone with any manner of interest in Classic Metal and Heavy Metal.