The Temper Trap
The Temper Trap
4 Track, LP (2006, Liberation Records)
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Melbourne quartet The Temper Trap has the bitter vowels and clanging guitars of England’s provincial misanthropes. On their debut EP they alight upon the northern bile that’s long counterbalanced London’s art school rock, but in their scenario the songs acquire a hint of grandeur and resolution – there’s a sparkle lurking beneath the post-punk clatter on “My Sun” that suggests ambitions of a certain stature. Production is from the much in demand Scott Horscroft (Presets, The Sleepy Jackson), who has put aside his ear for luxurious ornamentation to buttress the group’s predilection for momentum and scorn. “Peter Parker’s Alter Ego” falls flat with a faltering rhythm and an ill-judged metaphor, but “Sunday Painter” finesses the closing of the set with melancholic uplift and a plangent guitar bed.
by Craig Mathieson
