Blunt Force Trauma

Gignition
Swan Basement, North Fremantle 19/07/09
Upping the pressure next were five-piece Blunt Force Trauma, Thor's love children, complete with some damn thunderous noise and screaming vocals, pillaged everything in its wake. The front man patrolled the front of the stage, intimidating anyone who stepped onto the dance floor while the two guitarist kept everything in check. They were the tightest band on the night, with all changes being made smoothly as they worked through the set, never dropping their intensity. While that's a good thing, it might also be their weakness as the songs never relented and were near indistinguishable from each other despite the impressive level of musicianship.
- By Jason Kenny - - Drum Media Perth Issue 146

Next Big Thing 09 Feedback
from the judges:
10th June 2009 Foundry Hotel

Originality of music - There's no one like Blunt Force Trauma, you produce rocking energetic engaging metal. Not uncharted waters, but still very good at what you do. YES! a metal band that sounds original, can hear some influences, but none ripped off.

Songwriting - Great metal tracks, blunt chunks and blistering riffs. Dynamic and entertaining songs. Some well constructed songs.

Musicianship - Very tight and very authentic in what you were doing and that came through. Great musicianship from the band, can see there is a new drummer who is almost there, but is going to be a great metal drummer. You play with lots of energy and enthusiasm, everyone is competent and very few flat notes.

Market Viability - A very specific genre that doesn't appeal to all, In saying this Blunt Force Trauma play metal very very well. Probably not go to sell more records than Elton John, but don't think you want to, it should not be difficult to find a market for your music.

Stage presentation - Sounded pretty ugly and looked even uglier and was very enjoyable as a result. Awesome stage presentation, all band members showed great confidence on stage. Embraced hard core nature and rocked the stage.

Audience Response - Rocked. Great from their mates and not bad from the rest of the crowd. - Judges NBT 2009

The moment I placed this CD in the car, my ears were assaulted by guitars, drums and screaming. Reminiscent of Slipknot and System of a Down, I was nevertheless impressed.
Not to insult all the heavy metal fans out there, I am not much of a hardcore metal fan myself but I have to admit I was headbanging to the CD while driving out to dinner.
Stu has a great guttural scream. As good as Corey Taylor on all levels. Like any other metal band, they sound great.
If you listen to only pop music and fail to appreciate heavy metal music, give this band a listen and you won't regret it.
The best track on the demo is 'Under Siege' which is raw and noisy.
Check out the band on their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/ausbluntforcetrauma.
This is one CD to listen to when you're angry at the world.
Reviewer - Xingsta - Perthbands.com May 2009

Perth band Blunt Force Trauma were the lucky winners of our first lesser-known band spotlight: nominated in, and voted for, by the public. By the sounds of things, if you haven't heard of these guys yet, you probably will soon: they're focused and driven, and working really hard.
I spoke with Damien and Andy – who had been in bands together prior to Blunt Force Trauma, and played several festivals both locally and interstate – Metal for the Brain being among the biggest. Eventually these guys' other bands dissolved for various reasons, so in late 2006 they started a new one, which ended up being Blunt Force Trauma. The next year and a half was spent writing and jamming. By the end of 2008 they'd played the first show.
That first show was a resounding success, and they've followed up that success with several shows since. Gaining more gigs, to build up awareness of the band, and start building a solid fan base, is the key focus of Blunt Force Trauma for the immediate future.
One thing about this band is that they have a bit of an old-school side to their promotional strategy: going so far as to give away demos of their work to anybody who will take them.
'We made a three-song demo a little while ago and we've been pretty much handing 'em out like a Christmas card – to anybody who's wearing a metal shirt really,' Damien laughed. 'It's surprising, people are quite impressed by that, which is strange. But when you look at it, we just went, well, we can't miss out on all opportunities.'
While Blunt Force Trauma are keen to head to the Eastern states and tour with any bands that would like to hook up with them, for the time being they're focusing on their local scene. In terms of local networking, keeping their rehearsal time limited to hired rehearsal space has proved to be a good move. That, and the fact that having hired space forces the band members to rehearse and to make the most of the time that they have.
'I have to say that if you don't get to practise, if you don't get to go out there and do what you have to do every week, well, you're never gonna be good at,' Damien pointed out. It's like your sporting teams, that's why they have training.'
And yet, Blunt Force Trauma were also quick to acknowledge that if a band didn't have to means or resources to be able to do such a thing, it would potentially impact negatively on its ability to develop. Similarly, because Blunt Force Trauma have recording technology like ProTools at their fingertips, they were able to record and produce their demo themselves, which also saved them a ton of money.
When I asked these guys how they'd describe the Blunt Force Trauma sound, they said that it's pretty much how their name sounds, telling me:
'One of the reviews that we had said, “blunt chunks and blistering riffs”.'
But they were unwilling to commit to any particular genre because of the huge diversity of influences that the band members bring to the project. Interestingly, what they could tell me is mainly what Blunt Force Trauma isn't.
'It's thrash, but thrash has a lot of guitar solos that we don't do … it's progressive, groove thrash but not very core. It's not power metal, it's not black metal, it's not Metallica,' they laughed. 'But we've kinda been asking people as well, what they think and how they'd sorta classify it, and everybody just goes “it's metal”.'
One thing about Blunt Force Trauma that piqued my interest was that these guys have a presence in so many areas online, and that they have entered such competitions as The Next Big Thing: a comp that is not noted for its metal contingent. I asked Damien and Andy about that experience, thinking that there would have to be a story to it. Turns out I was right.
'We knew, from a metal perspective, that we weren't going to win it based on marketability. You know, we're a metal band and never has a metal band won,' they explained to me. 'It's not one of those things that we expected to do well in. But we turned up with none of the crowd on our side, and left with the entire crowd on our side. We put on a blistering show and got really good feedback from the judges.'
Being realists, and being metalheads, Blunt Force Trauma know as well as any other fan of metal that the metal scene is a pretty close community – and that the reality of not selling as many albums as a pop star is the way it is, and nobody expects it to be any different. However, that sort of thing is what the Next Big Thing is based on; regardless of that fact, the band left the venue after performing that night having made a number of real fans.
The feedback from the judges of the Next Big Thing was also quite useful for the band, and the exposure to another audience was really valuable for them. And yet the power of marketing continually demonstrates itself to this band; for instance, putting the notion out there that they'd been nominated for this spotlight feature yielded enough votes here at Metal as Fuck to push them over the lin - Metal As F*%K - LeticiaS July09