Eli's Band Shirt Collection: A Series of Retrospectives - Trophy Scars

To commemorate last Friday's Artist of the Day, Trickster Fox, I've decided for my next retrospective to focus on the progenitor of said band, Trophy Scars.  Well, maybe it has something to do with me being out of clean shirts and my Trophy Scars tee being what I wore today.  But I digress.

What this little series of retrospectives has given me the opportunity to do is revisit some of the bands that I love.  The very same bands, mind you, that I wish to let everyone know I love by having a big ol' logo and picture on my person.  But this edition gives me the great pleasure to talk about a band near and dear to me, and one of the most unabashedly creative musical groups out there today.

Trophy Scars, over the years, has grown from a by-the-numbers post-hardcore outfit, to a rather brilliant experimental rock collective.  Pumping out excellent release after excellent release, the band has continuously stunned with a musical maturity and sense of adventure that one cannot help but admire.  I praised ad nauseum last year with the band's most recent release, Never Born, Never Dead, going so far as calling it my favorite EP of 2011.  Mixing a blusey style of rock with post-hardcore aesthetics, Trophy Scars has a sound all its own.

Although my shirt bears the aformentioned EP's name, I feel it necessary to talk about the band's last full length, Bad Luck.  I'll admit, it took a bit to warm up to the record.  It didn't hit me initially for whatever reason, but when it did, it hit hard.  Not only is it largely the perfect realization of the band's sound, the lyrics and stories contained with in are absolutely incredible.  Jerry Jones really hit one out of the park with this one, as the intricate plot lines and over arching universal themes of love, revenge and redemption are particularly engrossing.  Yes, the typical beautiful gruffness displayed by the band is wonderful, but what the album says is so much more memorable.

Bad Luck is a modern day experimental rock classic.  It reeks of creativity, both musically and lyrically.  Despite following specific concepts the album manages to feel incredibly personal, as much of it (surprisingly) is quite relateable.  The band does a remarkable job of creating an absorbing atmosphere full of moments that stick in one's mind forever.  "Bad Winter" and "Anna Lucia" are two such songs that I find myself continually returning to, even three years later.

After this little article I doubt I have to reiterate why I love this band so much.  In fact it's much easier just to tell you to go out and pick up just about anything you can by this band.

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Darts to the Sea--2002
Hospital Music--2004
Goodnight Alchemy--2005
Alphabet Alphabets--2006
Bad Luck--2009
Darkness, Oh Hell--2010
Never Born, Never Dead--2011
Holy Vacants--TBA