TO DOWNLOAD DIGITAL OR BUY VINYL VISIT: trvss.bandcamp.com/album/new-distances

"Looking for noise-rock to cut through the film of dusty ear-drums like a straight razor? Well, TRVSS has your number. The trio cuts through the bullshit with post-hardcore propulsion. Sophomore effort, New Distances, as understatements go, is tightly wound. How TRVSS sounds this in synch is confusing for a band with this short of a resume.

The record kicks off with “In a Sense,” which darts from ominous and melodramatic thudding over jangly open chords to a crunchy gallop complete with chikka-chikka electrics that are sweetly addictive. “Disease was around in the time of Christ,” roars frontman Daniel Gene II. “It’s not how you spell it out/ It’s just how you say it.” The record has no shortage of fireworks. “The Ventriloquist Always Has the Last Laugh” whips between bluesy frames and barked vocals over barbed-wire guitar. The wonderfully thrashy “Malaria,” which features fellow Pittsburgher Eli Kasan of Sub Pop’s The Gotobeds on backing vocals, digs into the skin like so many nails and shrapnel shot from homemade bombs. “Stigma,” where drummer Neal Leventry and bassist Jake Pellatiro steal spotlights, is over-the-top yet oddly calculated. It’s somehow not blasphemous to say moments like the chorus of “Scale Model Citizen in a Scale Model Town,” where the band punches and pivots on each punctuating note, could stand up well alongside the work of a noise-rock icon like Steve Albini.

The band locks in few moments to exhale, where the full-frontal assault of aluminum guitars and floor-toms gives pause. Yes, on “The Actor” there are roars but there also are moments where Gene’s guitar flirts with brief figures and undercurrents of melody reminiscent of Duane Denison. But, again, Pellatiro keeps it dirgy and ugly and filthy, and the band positively explodes to close out the thing. “Hiss” features the most straightforward bass march on this side of Bob Weston’s “Crow” but the chorus makes you forget any moments of (relative) calm as it scorches, leaving behind blisters.

Something also should be said for the recording work of engineer Matt Schor, who lends the impression the band is rollicking throughout at maximum volume. The War Room engineer leaves in all sorts of incidental bumps and cracks, even some aural arrays and maxed-out mid-fi fuzz, to illustrate TRVSS’ volume. If you leave the thing getting the sense that you heard it through busted eardrums, you’ll know why.

Successive listens provide additional treats. Gene’s lyrics, direct and oft delivered with blunt force, are surprisingly memorable when you do catch them (“Afraid of lies when the truth is scarier/ Create a risk to secure the area/ Just beyond the edge of hysteria”). The band also seems to try to nail down its place in the zeitgeist. “Here comes the sun/ And I say, ‘Eh, it’s alright.’” Gene deadpans at the end of “Hiss,” in opposition to Beatlesque perkiness. The statement, much like The Youngbloods reference on Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings,” is inherently a bitter condemnation of ‘60s idyllic optimism. And the whole thing sounds less like someone celebrating sunshine positivity than the tired lament of a zombie exhausted from spending the night hunting and gnawing on half-dead flesh.

So, if you’re hungry for noise-rock that singes the skin, you might want to hitch your wagon to this ride now. In 10 years, you’ll want to say you saw ‘em at a Pittsburgh dive bar before anyone else recognized their artistry." (Spectrum Culture, spectrumculture.com/2020/07/29/trvss-new-distances-review/)

"While the 90s was awash with obscure bands cranking out gnarly, guitar-driven noise, the last decade or so (alright, I mean two decades, because I’m old and still can’t get my head around the fact that 1990 was 30 years ago and that Nevermind is 30 years old next year) has seen such music emerge only in pockets, with the likes of Leeds’ Blacklisters being prime exponents and one of the few to reach a wider audience – and it’s Blacklisters who probably stand as US noisemongers TRVSS’ closest contemporaries.

TRVSS are very much in the early 90s vein: I’m not just talking Am Rep and Touch and Go, but way further beneath the radar. Listening to the grainy, gritty grind of New Distances, I’m transported back, way back, and while I’m hearing The Jesus Lizard, I’m equally hearing Zoopsia, Headcleaner, Oil Seed Rape. Not familiar? To be clear here: I’m not promoting obscurest elitism here, but trying to give a flavour of just how choc-full of rabid guitar bands the underground scene was at a certain point in time – a time when bands like Terminal Cheesecake and Tar would receive coverage in the national music press, back when there was a national music press. They were exciting times, and that’s not the rose-tinting of a 45-year old reflecting on his youth: things were changing, and fast, and there was something in the air, and in your local record shop, in pub gig venues, and even on the radio

New Distances is a nasty mess of guitars driven by low-slung lurching basslines and drums that thud away in the background, half-buried in the welter of noise. Things are still changing at pace, of course, but mostly venues are closing, and there are no solid channels by which to access new and emerging talent. Where are the equivalents of The Tube, Snub:TV, The Word now? The Old Grey Whistle Test wasn’t even entirely the domain of proggy old farts, and now, we don’t even have Jools fucking Holland. There’s no M on MTV, and 4Music is a misnomer as well, but I digress.

TRVSS would probably never have made TV even back then, but it’s almost certain that John Peel, Melody Maker, and NME would have found a bit of room for some exposure for their raging, demented brand of no-wave / noise mania, and New Distances has no shortage of meat to give it appeal to a niche but substantial audience.

‘Stigma’ encapsulates the album’s rabid grunged-up noise-rock vibe, coming on like both side of the Nirvana / Jesus Lizard split ‘Oh The Guilt’ / ‘Puss’ simultaneously with it jarring guitar riffage and raw-throated vocal roar. ‘The Ventriloquist Always has the Last Laugh’ pitches skewed guitars galore, crash-landing in the space between The Jesus Lizard, Shellac, and the criminally underrated and proportionally obscure Milk.

It’s likely that TRVSS will remain forever obscure, although not on account of lack of appeal or lack of ability: sure, their stuff is dark, driving and ultimately extremely niche but all of this is ok: against the backdrop of blanket mass-media and sameness, such deliberately obscure an anti-mainstream music is essential and invigorating: lap it up while you can." (Aural Aggravation - auralaggravation.com/2020/09/24/trvss-new-distances/?fbclid=IwAR30PJ9PHJMRx6k9UZh_d8Tvb5QjAsBRFN5lo9daSI4EdRWoGIYX1HrqESI)

"Noise rock trio TRVSS (it’s pronounced “truss”) recently put out their second full length, ‘New Distances (or, the exquisite value in lying to oneself)‘ and it’s — ah you know what, just go buy it, right now, this instant. It’s up on their bandcamp page as a digital release but you really should get the cassette from the inimitable Cruel Nature. Just open another tab. I’ll wait right here, I’m not leaving the house anymore what with the ‘rona and all. Don’t worry bout me oh no, I’m sittin’ here sad and blue thinkin’ bout how all that Idles/Fat White Family spat is just a nothing but- oh, uh, you’re back already. That was fast. Cool cool.

Now that you’ve bought it, you’ll notice those trebly dissonant chords and the absolutely massive bass and drums, the caterwaul that turns to a dissonant stop-start. And those vocals! Scratchy and trebly like the guitar, and often at least as distorted. It’s especially cool that there’s often a dual vocal, one howling and the other talking, or one shriek-singing and the other yelling, kinda like when Fugazi was at their most tortured. TRVSS have a great sound, right? The drums and bass drive things forward with those pounding and tense rhythms, while the guitar and vocals switch off between being a third and fourth rhythm instrument and being a source of texture.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that the mixing on this record serves the band well. TRVSS play some punk/noise rock with some distortion on the bass and the vocals. Sometimes in records like that the guitar can disappear into a kind of mush – or to put it nicer, a diffuse wall of sound. On ‘New Distances’, the guitar is relatively clean, for a noise rock record, and all the sonic elements are distinct. And that’s important because there’s so much going on here. TRVSS have those rhythmic punky parts that make you want to move your body, and that kind of music is forgiving when it comes to how a record is mixed. But TRVSS also have these flourishes of complex technical parts that will impress your music-nerd brain (if you have one) or trigger a “whoa what the fuck that’s cool and weird” (if you don’t). That aspect of their music wouldn’t come through if this record was mixed worse.

Obviously you like everything about this record so you’re glad you bought it (you’re welcome! I’m here to help, and I know you need direction). There’s the yelling, the abrasiveness, the fast parts that energise you, the big vamping parts that make you bob your head, the parts that slow down and build tension, the little guitar fills that sound almost like surf rock.

Personally, my very favourite bit is the end of ‘Hiss’, the record’s awesome second song. It starts off tense, moody, and lumbering – a large animal restless, pacing with pent up aggression. At times the vocals remind me of Guy Picciotto at his most earnest, but played through a broken speaker, while other times they’re a shout-shriek that manages to be both anthemic and anguished. That goes on for about two minutes and 45 seconds and it’s great and the song could just end there and it’d still be a banger. But then comes over a full minute of sprawling and chaotic breakdown, veering sometimes into the exhilarating sort of territory where it feels like the song could fall apart entirely. You can tell that TRVSS must be amazing live. And then it’s back to a moody stumble-step like the songs opening, that throbbing bass and the two vocals start singing a snippet of ‘Here Comes The Sun’. But in this version, the sun isn’t welcome, it’s somewhere between ‘oh fuck not this again’ and ‘I really should have slept because I’ve got work today, my god this hangover….’

Well champ, the sun’s coming up now so soon you’re going to have to move on to all the nothing that eats up your days. Before that kicks in, give ‘New Distances (or, the exquisite value in lying to oneself)’ one more listen, and maybe dance around the living room hollering along – indulge yourself, you deserve it. Then take a minute to give back a little: go tell all your friends about this fantastic TRVSS record you bought and that they both should buy it too.

If comparisons help you make the case to your friends, I’d say elements of this record remind me of Shellac, METZ, Converge, Jesus Lizard, Buildings, and Blacklisters, at their most full-on blisteringly aggressive and also at their most textural, spaciously expansive and tense. That said, stress to your pals that TRVSS have their own sound and we shouldn’t disrespect that by reducing them to ‘oh they remind me of another band’. Like all great bands, there are other artists that their music would fit well on a mixtape with, but they are doing their own very cool thing. Alright I’ll talk to you later. It’s time for me to go replay this TRVSS record again." (Nate Holden, Birthday Cake For Breakfast birthdaycakebreakfast.wordpress.com/2020/10/20/album-review-trvss-new-distances-or-the-exquisite-value-in-lying-to-oneself/?fbclid=IwAR2mxeTZUrfp52o_T5q8twGVt3XLtGu6H04PHwzPt4jkJOozJL-_l8tgPO8)