Traumatomy - Triumph Of Enslavement
“If You Heard That First One, You’ve Pretty Much Heard the Rest.”
Written by Big Bear Buchko

The Simpsons invented the word “Meh.”

It seems weird to say that, since it felt like a word we’d all heard and said a thousand times before when Bart and Lisa first uttered this mark of indifference during the season six episode entitled “Sideshow Bob Roberts” (episode five). Meh. M-E-H. And with that first utterance, a globally-understood term of low-energy apathetic who-gives-a-shit-ism entered our collective lexicon. I could write an entire article about this one episode, and a thousand articles just based around my lifelong love of The Simpsons. However, Traumatomy is not The Simpsons, and I most certainly do not love them.

I give you this brief history of the word “meh” because that is the final and ultimate feeling I have walking away from this album - Triumph of Enslavement. I even waited to see if I was maybe in an overly disinterested mood; I listened to the entire record, front to back. I then realized I wasn’t listening the entire time that I was listening. So, I listened to it again. And I missed it, again. I waited a few days, sat down once more, and gave it another go. A few minutes in, and I was back to being physically present but mentally elsewhere. (I think I decided to update my Tinder on the third playthrough.) I gave it a few more days and one more try, and… nope. Nothing. I honestly can’t tell you a thing about this record other than the fact that it exists. I feel neither good nor bad; love nor hate; neither interest or revulsion about this album. It just… exists.

“Ingress To Horridness” is the grand opener. It has guitars that are… not awful. Not great. Drums that are… fine, I guess. There’s probably a bass guitar in there, sure. Vocals that aren’t the worst I’ve heard, but certainly aren’t special in any way. The song is very… there. It’s all right, it’s fine. It’s… meh. Meh. “Triumph Of Enslavement?” Same kind of song, same kind of guitars. No real variation in anything, it just kind of is what it is and was what it was. “Consumed Into Nothing,” “Womb of the Desecrated?” If you heard that first one, you’ve pretty much heard the rest. Triumph of Enslavement is five tracks of moderately uninspired, generic across the board, death metal; not special, not unique, they just are.

Even the band members themselves appear as though this is probably a not-so-serious side project for most of them, as they all have that generic, vaguely Eastern European air of “we play metal cold and hard like most our nights and women,” and I’m… neither moved nor moved away by the band’s addition of “fun facts” in their press release. (Our bass player was smoking weed, thinking he was smoking cigarettes. Then he fell in the bathroom and hit his head. :))) It was slammy!!!!) I did not add the over-emphasized punctuation marks, and I don’t really get their repeated used of “slammy,” though I can piece together what they mean by the segments’ context. But again, it’s all just so… meh.

What they claim as brutality is merely lucidity. What they wear as innovation is simply generality. They seem to be touting the brilliance of candles while the rest of us have already moved onto electric light. They’re not bad. They’re not good. They just are. And that’s where I leave you. Traumatomy’s Triumph of Enslavement is like a good piece of lettuce. It’s crisp, but it’s still just lettuce.