Album Review: Johnny Traunt - 'In The Library Of Horrific Events'

Johnny Truant are a band who’ve been on my radar for quite a while now, but it’s with this, their debut album that they are going to FINALLY be rewarded with some international recognition.

Hailing from Brighton, England JT have been destroying stages across the UK and the rest of Europe for the past 3 years. In the process they’ve played at the (in)famous Download Festival (which has about 50,000 attendees a year to give you an idea of how monumental this is) and toured with everyone from The Black Dahlia Murder to As I Lay Dying.

It’s not often you come across a heavy band who’ve come up with a new sound but “In The Library Of Horrific Events” is a record that takes the elements of metal you already know and love and still manages to present us with something fresh.

If you took the serrated, off time riffing of Coalesce, threw in the southern rock dirge of Pantera and added the melodic sensibilities of Sold State hillbillies He Is Legend you’d be getting close to the JT sound. Now if this combination of influences sounds unfeasible to put into practice I can assure you that Johnny Truant have no such problem.

The songs flow from start to finish and at no point in the album does anything they’ve attempted sound awkward or unstructured. JT are able to veer between brutal chugging passages and melodic flourishes at the drop of a hat and their obvious skill at their given instruments makes for some extremely impressive performances.

The standout on this track has to be vocalist Olly. The band’s previous

work was fairly one dimensional when it came to the vocal department

however Olly spends 40 minutes showcasing a range of screams, growls

and shrieks that would make most front men jealous. Another thing I

found impressive was the use of his voice in the album’s melodic

passages – no cheesy, cliché clean vocals but something more akin to

what you’d find on an Isis record.

   1. "I Love You Even Though You're A Zombie Now" – 3:02
   2. "The Bloodening" – 4:03
   3. "Realist Surrealist" – 3:35
   4. "Dirty Vampire Feeding Frenzy" – 5:04
   5. "Thro