TROCAR - Extremities (Review)

Written by: The Administrator

Let's clear this up right out of the gate: Trocar are gross. Not cutesy gross, but fundamentally and irrevocably gross. Repugnancy has been the name of the game for these (literal) organ grinders, and their debut full-length is accordingly stomach-churning. If you're unfamiliar with Trocar, just consider that the band composition consists of two members of Fluids (Jan Grotle and Walter Hale) alongside death metal connoisseur Schuler Benson, who you may know from @deathmetalradio infamy. Given the lineup, please extrapolate. The sum of the component parts is bound to be bloody, unsettling, grotesque.

Anyways. The bluntly and accurately entitled Extremities was released April 5th via Selfmadegod Records, and if you've enjoyed Trocar's work thusfar across various splits and EPs, you'll enjoy this. Indeed, in my opinion, this is their best work yet. A genuine level up. It may be the sonic equivalent of a garbage bag filled with medical waste left in the sun for, oh, a couple of decades, but Extremities is the finest grind I've had pleasure of consuming in quite some time.

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Trocar list a series of influences, but don't sound like any other band on an individual basis. In other words, there's no copy/pasting at play here. For sake of comparison, they do adopt the obvious and overt gore of Exhumed, the assertive grindy aggression of Agoraphobic Nosebleed. The 'core side of the grindcore genre tag is quite prevalent, with many tracks herein propelling forth on the back of a definite punky momentum. There are many such examples, but the frantic "Orphaned Organs" and "Perverse Incentives" might be favorites. Leaning into cybergrindian territory, Extremities also employs an industrial sense of harsh noise and throbbing electronic intensity. Imagine if Regurgitate absorbed Godflesh whilst in the womb. As I stated in my review of their debut EP, Trocar "rage forth with a burbling putridity and a mechanized drive, like unto a piece of flesh-mangling machinery that unexpectedly kicks into high gear when you climb inside to clean out the gunk."
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Instrumentally, there is a lot going on, but never so much that the album feels overwhelming. Alongside the more classic grind motifs--see the title track for a prime example--the aforementioned electronic elements are cleverly incorporated in a way that feels almost more organic than mechanical. Although it serves more as an interlude and intro to the pulsating "Brazen Head," I really enjoy "Hangnail" for the menacing cyber atmosphere. "Psalter of Manias," a strong contender for my favorite track overall, is grimy and industrial with an oddball dirty and dirgy undercurrent. One outlier in the tracklist is the closer--at nearly 6 minutes, "Golem" feels a little overlong for its placement in the larger picture. While I do quite enjoy the track independently and Trocar's willingness to dive into both cleans and long-form songwriting in general--see the excellent 2022 standalone single "Wonders Cease"--I found that "Golem" serves as an almost distractingly expansive note to end the album on.

​Of significant note is the wide array of vocal techniques and delivery crammed into these trim 28 minutes. There are strained screeches, deathy roars, and some of the most unhinged displays of vocal fry I've heard in a minute. There are damply harsh chants, wretched forth with a punk-derivative cadence. But the crème de la crème are the sodden gurgles, burbling like a putrid concoction of bile and pus boiling over a blowtorch. Imagine reverse-plunging the world's most clogged toilet from the flange, projectile vomiting veritable gallons of shit from the mouth of the bowl in the process. That's how thick and propulsive these gurgles truly are. And, regardless of the style Schuler adopts, his voice is nauseatingly wet. Just absolutely dripping. This particular concoction of gore and grind lives and dies by dynamics, and on Extremities, Schuler delivers an applause-worthy performance.

​Niche as the scene may be, it seems like Trocar are well positioned to become a serious player in the goregrind field. This ​is a fantastic and grotesque debut, both demonstrating and capitalizing on a wide bevy of strengths. If you're a fan of goregrind, or gory cybergrind--or just, y'know, excess gore in general--Extremities will almost certainly whet your appetite.

Which is a gross sentiment in and of itself, but by this point we should be well past that.

Trocar - Extremities was released April 5th, 2024 via Selfmadegod Records. Find it here!

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Trocar can be found:
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