Currently relocated to London from his native Northern Ireland, singer/ songwriter Conor Breen is clearly a man of refinement and taste where writing killer pop-punk tunes with introspective leanings are concerned.
His band TRIST'S debut album "Sounds Like Apocalypse" is positively chocka with the little beggars and it's a well-played, well-produced affair with beautifully-realised seething melodies going off all over the shop and Breen's commanding vocal (which has the odd falsetto flight of fancy without sounding horribly derivative) comfortably edging into the limelight. Virtually all these 12 songs would sound good barrelling out of the radio and this album suggests this band's currently little-known status won't stay that way for long.
"Sounds Like Apocalypse" was recorded in Newry, Co.Down, but while that might conjure visions of near-neighbours Ash, Trist actually remind this writer more of another (under-rated) Irish band, Wilt, more often than not. That band had a similar way with cauterising guitars and catchy melodies, and Breen's often intimate lyrical musings provide an effective counterpoint in the same way Cormac Battle's did.
Which is not to say Trist are anything but their own band: a fact that "Sounds Like Apocalypse" reminds us of over and again. Opener "Piece Of You" immediately grabs you attention with its' driving guitars and powerful rhythm and sets the tone well for the remainder.
Indeed, "Sounds Like Apocalypse" proves to be an impressively consistent debut altogether. Songs like "Flame" - with its' bitten-off riffing - and "Clear Blue Sky" both recall Husker Du favourably and have the requisiste yearning aggression and soaring choruses in exactly the right places, while the excellent "It's Alright" is dark, widescreen pop-rock of the highest order and gets to the point in a lethally impressive fashion.
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Elsewhere, Breen's barely-submerged frustration comes to a head during the boisterous "It's All In Your Mind" (sample lyric: "I've had enough of tomorrow, had enough of today/ but I'm searching for an answer/ it's deeper everyday"), while the band's intelligent, knife-edge attack recalls the stupidly-forgotten Compulsion. Trist have ambition, too: witness the escalating choruses and Screaming Trees-style melodic torrents of "Peace Inside" and "Spera" - arguably this writer's favourite track - where Breen's voice achieves maybe its' most powerful clarity and the whle band play their heart out as the song reaches its' aching climax. Damn, damn good, in a soundbite.
Trist, then, are a well-drilled and vividly exciting outfit we should be hearing more from if there's any justice at all. "Sounds Like Apocalypse" could make the earth move for plenty and is too good to remain simply a local explosion.
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