Release Date: August 13, 2021 Genre: Post-Hardcore, Rock (Various)
Label: Hopeless Records
St Albans, England-based pop-punk/post-hardcore/rock quintet, has upped the ante with their forthcoming third album, Don't You Feel Amazing? The band first broke into the music scene in 2014 with their independently released, Look Alive EP. The band originated as a pop-punk-oriented band. Trash Boat then later signed to Hopeless Records. The quintet went on to follow the similar sound into their second EP, Brainwork (2015) and debut album, Nothing I Write You Can Change What You've Been Through (2016), with elements of hardcore sprinkled without. On their second album, Crown Shyness (2018), Trash Boat moved almost entirely away from pop-punk for a more punk rock/melodic hardcore/alternative rock effort and recharged their songwriting in a new direction. Don't You Feel Amazing? once again pushes their boundaries of what a "typical" album from the band would be. In late 2020, Trash Boat hit the studio with Grammy-nominated music producer Jason Perry (Don Broco, McFly, Dave Hollister).
Trash Boat tackles a wide-ranging group of topics on Don't You Feeling Amazing? Vocalist Tobi Duncan touches on the LGBTQ+ youth experience, frustration, desires, struggle, hedonism, pain, redemption, and more through the album's thirteen tracks. Each subject expressed on the album is done unapologetically and candidly. The album opens with the title track, "Don't You Feel Amazing?" and begins with a distorted, colossal bass line that looks to shake the ground you're standing on. Overall, the track is a massive one to start off an album that's equally as massive. However, lyrically the track touches on hedonism, seeking pleasure in anything. The following track, "Silence Is Golden," speaks on corporate greed, classism, and monopoly media. The song pushes the band into even more new territory musically and features a massive post-hardcore style breakdown. In the third track and the album's most recent single, "Bad Entertainment," the band swerves off course musically a tad with a large sounding rock number with some pop elements included by the use of vocal effects. Additionally, the track features WARGASM vocalist and bassist Milkie Way providing her talents to the single. Lyrically, "Bad Entertainment" puts a spotlight on current-day media and how it's dead set on constructing a false narrative than accurately representing current events.
The album's immensely powerful lead single, "He's So Good," is a straight from the heart telling of a story of someone Duncan met on the road while on tour in the United States. He touches on how this person grew up with the fear of coming out to their loved ones, something Duncan has never had to worry about because his family has never expected anything from him but to be his true self. The track tells a slightly imaginative side to things with how Duncan imagined meeting this person's parents with them and how they might have been respectful to them both, but how they saw their sexualities. Meaning on a much deeper level, he wasn't getting the same respect in return. The song is a reminder to people that they're not responsible for other people's prejudices. Upon the initial release of "He's So Good," all proceeds from merchandise sales of the track went to AKT, a UK-based charity dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ youth at risk of homelessness.
On the album's seventh track, "Alpha Omega," the band is point-blank just talking about an idiot. The track is heavy and angry, and it blurs the line between their heavier music and hip-hop. "Alpha Omega" is a massive sounding numbering and additionally features the rising hip-hop/trap metal artist Kamiyada+ from the United States, who is a label mate on Hopeless Records. On songs like "Cannibal" and "All I Can Never Be," Trash Boat takes things down a tad. "Cannibal" takes you back to their previous album Crown Shyness with an alternative rock number, but with bouts of this slightly new sound adapted on Don't You Feel Amazing? Whereas on "All I Can Never Be," the band offers up the most heartfelt, stripped-back track on the entire album. The first inklings of a brand new album came with the release of "Synthetic Sympathy" in August 2019. The track also takes it back to something similar to their previous album and showcases the sound the band was initially going for on this album. Over the last year, before the band hit the recording studio, the band built on that sound and evolved it into something much bigger. Trash Boat's third album closes out with "Maladaptive Daydreaming." Another track with a unique feel from the rest of the album that showcases a drum and bass uniqueness to it. Making it a great closing track for a near-perfect outing from the English band.
