Traitrs are a duo from Toronto who play dark goth indie, formed in 2015 by Shawn Tucker and Sean-Patrick Nolan with the album being produced by Josh Korody.
The album opens with Sea Howl that sounds like Radiohead at there slowest and most experimentally prog, it very slowly builds, as if the swell is rising, as the storm is coming, crashing all around you.
Mouth Poisons is musically a bit lighter and more upbeat even if lyrically it is still pretty dark, this sounds like they have modernized The Cure's classic sound, this should be heard in a dark room with a few candles burning like most of the album should. The Bassline comes and goes while driving the song along as the guitars are insistent and have spectral flashes within their dark heart.
Prostitution begs to sell you for less than your really worth, as the darkness whirls around you, as you contemplate what part of you can be sold and at what price, as the image of standing in the rain waiting for a John to claim you, swirls against the dark synth sounds.
Magdalene seems to carry on the theme in Prostitution although this doesn't seem to be implicitly about the whore of Christ, it does take some dark twisted turns and sounds somewhere between The Cure and Combichrist as they feel like they are in a world without love.
Oh, Ballerina starts slowly as if she is a slowly waking figure on the stage, gently unfurling before the drums kick in and they ask the Ballerina some questions about why she's on the run and what she's running from, could it be another abusive choreographer.
TV Hours is a short interlude of samples from various TV news reports. All Living Hearts Betrayed is a yearning Cure like plea in the dark for the realization that everyone is betrayed at one time or another.
From This Old Mirror keeps to the modernized Cure feel in a similar way to Vlimmer or A Projection do as we all stare into that Old Mirror and wonder who else has gazed into it and what have they seen revealed.
Ghost And The Storm comes far enough into this album to feel like it is just a continuation of the last couple of songs as there isn't loads of difference in how things sound, which isn't a bad thing just the songs don't seem to differentiate themselves too much as this becomes a bit Goth formulaic.
Last Winter stands out by slowing things down to more of a Bauhaus fronted by Robert Smith pace as the guitars and synths swirl around like a snowstorm.
The album closes with The Way Through A Bird's Love that seems to be using Bird in it's old sense as a term of affection for the woman he loves, which in this woke era seems a rather brave thing to do, as the song is a glacial goth song of want and desire it works pretty well.
Find out more at https://traitrs.bandcamp.com/album/horses-in-the-abattoir https://www.facebook.com/traitrs
