Review by Woody
Midlands’s singer/songwriter Daniel Trigger has been around for quite a while and has definitely paid his dues on the live front playing small pubs to a handful of people, through to large events with audience figures in the thousands and everything in between. His most notable band was the recently retired ‘Trigger’ who released four albums and were together from 2003 til 2011. It seems that elusive break may have jaded Dan a bit as ‘Infinite Persistence’ has been billed as his swan song release. Given the effort Dan has put into his music and song writing, this frustration is perfectly understandable, so is Dan’s last throw of the dice any good?
Well the simple answer is an almighty YES! It seems that if Dan is going to call time on releasing albums he is going down in a blaze of glory, with his strongest collection of songs to date. Dan’s song writing style has always been in the vein of commercial rock but being very aware of what’s popular in rock circles he consciously tried to mix stadium rock style melodies with a darker and heavier stance of more contemporary rock acts. With Trigger this lead to some very patchy albums with a very obvious mish-mash of styles. Don’t get me wrong, Trigger had their moments but with Infinite Persistence Dan has carved a definitive sound and this album flows so much better than any of the Trigger albums.
Dan successfully mixes elements of melodic rock with a more contemporary rock sound akin to Shinedown and Alter Bridge. Whilst I do miss the obvious melodic rock beauty of songs like ‘Can’t Save The World’ the modern edge does make the album less retro sounding and more forward thinking. However, this album is still jam packed with big choruses and harmonies – it’s just delivered in a more current way.
Infinite Persistence has taken two years to be made and I think that shows in a very good way. It has allowed Dan to live with his songs, tinker with them and improve them gradually. He’s never afraid to multi-layer any of the vocals or music to give every song maximum effect, never missing a chance for a hook to be placed into any song. One thing I’ve noticed about Dan’s song writing on this album is the little sections where he’ll put in some killer keys, vocals or guitar solo and change the momentum of the song and make a good song even more memorable!
Dan’s never sounded better and I think Dan’s been very meticulous in creating his best vocal performance yet. He appears keen to inject some energy into many of the songs by putting in screams and yells to add to a song’s punch, this helps with the heavier aspect that Dan is going for as he delivers some old school metal wails that Priest’s Rob Halford would be jealous of! He seems to have nailed his vocal performance perfectly in every aspect of every song, delivering emotive soul filled vocals when needed right through to bombastic screams.
In fact I’m extremely impressed with all the musicianship here considering these guys are unknowns – they are far from amateurs. Dan’s keys are majestic and Jerry Sadowski’s thunderous drumming is very impressive! Guitarist Dave D’Andrade is a real revelation, not only delivering some crunching riffs but with some jaw dropping solos. Add this level of musicianship to the high quality production and you get an album that will shock you to learn is an independent release!
At fourteen tracks long this is a shockingly strong and consistent album and definitely value for money. Dan has obviously delivered his best but hopefully not his last album. With news that Infinite Persistence is set for a full release on a European label later this year the signs do point to Dan embarking on a continuingly fruitful musical path with fingers crossed more albums in the future.
All in all its a fantastic bombastic rock album mixing elements of old school melodic rock with darker edged contemporary rock! So go buy this album now, crank it right up to neighbour-annoying levels and as Dan demands on ‘Screaming At The Enemy’ – RAISE YOUR HANDS!
9 out of 10
- Visit Daniel Trigger’s website here
