Released by: Traffic Death

Release Date: December 10, 2017

Genre: Thrash/Grindcore/Punk

Links:
Bandcamp : https://trafficdeath.bandcamp.com/
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/TrafficDeath/

Lineup:

Guitar : Garan Drozd
Vocals: Nate “Fetus” Phillips
Bass: Andrew Smeltzer
Drums: Brian Greenfield

Tracklist:

1. Spontaneous Decomposition / Nothing To See Here
2. Mandatory Sentence
3. Gasping For Air / Roadside Death Assistance
4. Watch It
5. Dead End
6. Self Inclined
7. Run Them Out
8. Gun In Hand
9. Internal Void
10. Gone Forever / Consumed By Fire

We were not familiar with Traffic Death when we were asked to take a listen to their newest album ‘Dead End’ which comes out on December 10th. The band is a four piece thrash/ punk/ grindcore outfit, coming from Des Moines, Iowa, and this crosses over to the doom side of metal somewhat on some songs on the album. One thing we can say for sure, this album is a never let up ear pounding.

Each song is played for the most part as fast as you can, but there are moments in between filled with some hard and heavy riffs. The first couple songs have a raw energy that propels this record off in the right way. ‘Mandatory Sentence’ has a killer riff and becomes an early favorite song. And the song ‘Gasping For Air / Roadside Death Assistance’ is about as slow as it gets on this album if that’s possible.

The songs cruise along through a fast and furious pace until you get to the latter part of the album. This is where it changes to a little more riff-driven rather than fast pace. ‘Gun In Hand’, ‘Internal Void’ and ‘Gone Forever / Consumed By Fire’ are without a doubt the best this album has to offer. The guitar sounds great and the flow is better than at any other point on the record.

Not sure why they decided to do all these split song titles, and the only knock on the album is that the band could have added a few more songs since the total time is only around 25 minutes. There is nothing slow here, it’s full speed ahead at all times. Like we said, the latter half of this album is definitely where it’s at on this one. As our introduction to these guys, we aren’t disappointed, and we look forward to hearing more from the band in the future. Live shows must be high energy, which is something we would love to get out and see. This album is worth picking up if you’re into thrash and grindcore music.

Written by: Pam and Mark Schaff