Album review: ‘Everything Is Fine’ by Trash Flower
Everything Is Fine is the more than fine debut album by Gloucestershire-based rock band Trash Flower, who have performed at festivals such as Malvern Rocks, Tewkesbury Music Festival, and Worcester Music Festival. The band count Skunk Anansie, Guns N’ Roses, and Nine Inch Nails amongst their influences. Therefore, fans of Enya and sensitive dispositions are advised to seek alternative musical nourishment.
“She takes control, moves to the front,” sings front woman Aimee Flatt on the chorus of opening track ‘Malinche’. As a statement of intent, it can’t be topped. The track can be described as ‘mid-Career Stereophonics soundtracking Grand Theft Auto’. Charlie Paxford on guitar channels his inner Tom Morello on ‘HYPERION’, which bursts into auditory view like a brick through a conservatory window. ‘Rise to Power’ begins like Filter’s ‘Take A Picture’ and the chorus is in the ballpark of Pearl Jam. The single ‘She Bitch’ was reviewed by SLAP last April. Whoever inspired the lyrics may want to go into hiding. ‘She Bitch’ is certainly not to be shared with your nan, unless your nan is a deeply unpleasant character who needs to be put in her place via a song that sounds like a very angry Republica.
The piano on ‘Laid to Waste’ will take you by surprise, given the barrage beforehand. Trash Flower can do delicate and destructive. If someone had told you that ‘I Like The Way’ was written and recorded in Seattle in 1991, you would believe them. One can easily imagine Matt Dillon miming to it. The subterranean bass and synth on ‘AnthropoiD’ take us into nu metal territory, which is just fine if you’re a middle-aged music journalist who thinks civilisation peaked in 2000. “Slugs like Kilimanjaro are sliding down the walls / In your roach hotel you’ve got no one to call” – these are the opening lyrics to ‘Onslaught 1985’, which also refers to Satan and murder. We’ve gone from nu metal to death metal. The track might be an extended metaphor for ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’, when police attacked a so-called ‘peace convoy’ on 1st June 1985. Or it might not. ‘Just Not Every Day’ features piano that wouldn’t have been out of place on Moby’s phenomenally successful 1999 album Play. However, the chorus has much more in common with Bon Jovi than the whale-named New York techno boffin.
“Gotta keep fighting…Need to keep trying,” Flatt sings on ‘Drained’, which is a burnout anthem that ends as if a portal to another universe has just been opened. The guitar on eponymous track ‘Trash Flower’ is crunchier than a gravelled forecourt, and the line “I won’t give you the power!” is one to be bellowed at protests and appraisals. Album closer ‘Not Sober’ takes the most delightful detour into mournful folk halfway through. Unlike a full-time geologist, Trash Flower are clearly not content to confine themselves to rock. Their experimentation bodes well for the next album, and if you want to be kept on your toes while also flailing your arms in the air, get yourself to a Trash Flower gig soon.
Everything Is Fine is out now on all major streaming platforms and on CD via the store.
By: Neil Laurenson