Power Trip's thrash metal somehow feels both authentically retro and also refreshingly contemporary. It's like they entered a time machine in the '80s that transported them a few decades into the future with all of today's digitally-minded accoutrements.
The interstitial nature of the band might have something to do with the fact that they started out as a hardcore punk outfit in Dallas, Texas, a decade ago.
"I didn’t feel like I had to adjust my lyrics. I felt like I could talk about anything. There’s plenty of things to have a love/hate relationship with in music, and metal and hardcore allow me to release my anger when I realize how f----- we are," lead singer Riley Gale told me over the phone on Saturday afternoon.
"It's the best outlet I could have asked for," he added.
Power Trip's new album, "Nightmare Logic," puts that anger on full display -- from Blake Ibanez's banshee guitar howls to Gale's gritty lyrics.
"It’s mostly identifying external events and the way that I would choose to cope with them ... It’s kind of like a generic call to arms. We have so much to complain about in this world," Gale explained. "[My lyrics] are about identifying political issues and saying, 'How can we cope with these issues and how can we rise above them?'"
Local
Despite the fierceness of the band's music, Gale isn't calling for violence: "You should be able to deal with words before resorting to violence," he said.
Instead, he's trying to motivate people to figure out what they want. He wants people to be able to defend their point of view without being oppressive.
"It's not anti-spirituality; it's more so the corruption and abuse of power," he said regarding lyrics that criticize social and religious institutions.
But he's not shy about letting it be known that some criticisms have a specific party in mind even if they're cloaked in generalities.
"The idea behind the generic 'you' is that it’s not direly specific. It's a way to get fired up against Trump without directly referencing Trump," Gale concluded.
Power Trip play Observatory North Park on Sunday, Oct. 8. Get tickets here.
Rutger Rosenborg was almost a Stanford poet-neuroscientist before he formed Ed Ghost Tucker. Whoops. He now fronts the Lulls and makes music on his own when he's not writing. Follow his updates on Facebook or contact him directly.
