No Trigger - 'Extinction in Stereo'

While No Trigger melted quite a few faces with last year’s Canyoneer, it was not the band’s first melodic hardcore salvo of awesomeness. That honor would be bestowed on the EP Extinction in Stereo, a collection of the band’s first two demos. Recorded between 2003 and 2004, and earning an odd Japan-only release from BigMouth JPN in 2004, Extinction in Stereo is finally available in massive doses here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Good thing too, as the tracks presented here are delicious lil slices of incendiary punk rock. It’s easy to see why these duders scored a Nitro contract.

Combining Comeback Kid’s riffs with Strike Anywhere’s politics, No Trigger kicks off this EP with one of its strongest tracks, “What We Became.” Frontman Tom Rheault and crew tackle modern America’s racial and sexual intolerance, singing, “If a man and a man cannot walk hand in hand / would it make your little day and would you celebrate narrow minds running this democracy?” Later, he rejoices interracial relationships with, “It’s only skin / someday they’ll see it’s only love.” For an Alliance member such as myself, this stuff sounds like gospel with gang vocals.

Another knockout song explodes on track three, “Earthtones,” in which Rheault rocks some hardcore nature imagery. The coasts and forests of the Americas wrap these guys “up in all these earth tones,” forcing them to wonder why we aren’t trying harder to preserve the planet’s beauty. As guitars crash and vocal chords shred, Rheault screams, “Am I the only one touched by the setting sun?” but is not alone.

It is not surprising that “What We Became” and “Earthtones” are also the more recent tracks recorded by No Trigger – these guys keep getting better with time. That’s not a diss to the second half of Extinction in Stereo, which consists of the group’s first demo, recorded in the summer of 2003. These other songs kick quite a bit of butt; they just don’t tear it up quite as vividly as the newer chompies.

That aside, though, the band still shreds musically and lyrically. While tracks like “Domesticated” brim with violent war imagery provided by angry humans, with children being gunned down and planes being blown apart, it’s hard to divorce all of that negativity with one of the song’s lines: “Don’t hide the scars / stand up and listen to the sounds.” This defiance in the face of death strikes me as No Trigger’s credo. Hyper-literate and chock full of crispity, crunchity guitars, Extinction in Stereo is a brilliant introduction to No Trigger. Pick this one up. Then get Canyoneer. Oh yeah, and then do your part to save the world.