Toronto based post punk act TRAITRS have releaased a new track from their new EP “Rites & Ritual”, due out on June 24th on Pleasence Records. “Youth Cults” is one hell of a listen and proves one of the 80s new wave / post punk era’s most interesting curios that 30 years later, it’s actually still alive. Great listen.
Traitrs are a Toronto-based band comprised of Sean-Patrick Nolan and Shawn Tucker. Long-time friends, the pair formed as Traitrs in mid-2015. Initially conceiving of the band primarily as a recording project they rapidly amassed a collection of demos that caught the attention of Toronto producer Josh Korody (Dilly Dally, Beliefs, Moon King, Fucked Up), and began working with him during sessions at his Candle Studios in January of 2016. With Korody’s guidance the band set about expanding their sound, adding textural depth to their arrangements and weight to their rhythm section, transforming their stripped-down home recordings into a collection of propulsive, goth-influenced post-punk that immediately recalls acts like Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and Pornography-era Cure. The album was almost complete when singer Tucker slipped on black ice and badly broke two ribs. He was bed-ridden for several weeks and wrote the album’s lyrics under heavy sedation while locked in an all day cycle of occult cinema. “It kind of broke me physically and mentally.” says Tucker. “All my days flipped into nights and I started filling my time with Italian horror films. I watched everything by Fulchi, D’Amato, Bava and Argento. Then I moved on to 70’s occult films like The Devils, Twins of Evil and La Endemoniada interlaced with 80’s slasher films. I watched films unceasingly and scrapped down lines for nights on end. The lyrics are littered with occult madness, sacrifices, purity, piety, witchcraft, mid-century religion, ghosts and death. I have no recollection of writing any of it.”
These sessions became the band’s debut EP Rites & Ritual. The second single from the record, “Youth Cults,” is premiering today on CVLT Nation, and filters the occult cinematic influence that underpins the LP through vocalist Shawn Tucker’s own religious upbringing, to reflect on the way fanatical belief is propagated over time.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the influence of cults and religion through generations,” says Tucker. “Sean and I both come from very religious families so the concept of blind belief out of fear and telling fairy tales to children is something that both terrifies us and interests us to no end. We both grew up in houses filled with crucifixes and holy water and it’s something I come back to often. Into my third week of being completely off my head I started working on the lyrics for ‘Youth Cults.’ One Spanish occult film in particular, Escalofrío (aka Satan’s Blood), inspired a lot of the imagery in “Youth Cults”. The film is filled with orgies, Satanic rituals, creepy dolls, attempted suicides, Ouija boards.”
While little might be known about Toronto-based band, Traitrs it seems their rise to success is guaranteed with the promising horror-tinged debut single “Witch Trials.”
NOISEY
