Trauma...

"Trauma..." is the third Traumatic Voyage album. I view it as the final part of a 'trilogy' on the theme of trauma (the other two parts being "Traumatic..." and "Traumatized..."). I like those first two albums, but I’m not keen on this one. Traumatic Voyage, being the project of Mark Edward Astorian, was always an exercise in outsider extremity. He pushed the avant-garde boundaries of black and death metal as far as anyone else. In doing so, his music veered between brilliance and confusion. The first two albums were flawed in terms of song-writing, but they succeeded due to his irrepressible creative force. I have enormous respect for his singular musical vision.

This album doesn't succeed. Flaws I can overlook on the first two albums are insurmountable here. “Trauma…” is over seventy minutes long. My brain cannot process that amount of Traumatic Voyage in one sitting. The songs are not as good as they were before. There are no standouts like "Occultation" here. The meandering song-structures are harder to forgive because these songs lack character. One of them (“Etherspace”) is over eighteen minutes long but does nothing to merit such a length. The shorter ‘skit’ tracks (like "Selfconfession") are more self-conscious than they were on earlier records. The worst thing about this album is the relative lack of extremity. Astorian introduced more melody here, but reduced the harshness. This album lacks the feeling of confrontation, so the music fades into the background.

The drumming is odd. I loved Christof Albien's performance on the previous album. It sounded vibrant and technically accomplished. I don’t like it here, more due to the production than anything else. The drums feel compressed, incongruous with the fuzzy, jangly, lo-fi guitar tone. Albien left Traumatic Voyage after this album. Astorian had learnt how to play the drums by that point, so he no longer needed collaborators. Another minor problem with the album is the excessive use of film samples. This is less subtle than it was on “Traumatized…”. It lacks the seamless 'sound collage' feel of that record. Take a track like "Everdark" for example. There is a sample which says "Welcome to my world!" which feels contrived. Astorian managed to avoid cliches in the past, but began to invent his own on this record.

This album is a red herring. Records like this can damage an artist’s reputation because they create false impressions. I would not have continued to listen to Traumatic Voyage based on this album alone. For the first time in Astorian’s career, he was releasing music that sounded behind the times. Norwegian black metal bands like Fleurety and Ved Buens Ende were feeling their way into the avant-garde. In the UK, Dark Heresy took similar steps with death metal. Over in Japan, Sigh was getting ever more ambitious. Astorian's warped eccentricity was no longer as cutting edge as it had once been. “Trauma…” is an annoying record. Better albums exist. Better Traumatic Voyage records exist.