I Knew Trapt Was Absolutely Horrible, But Nothing Could've Prepared Me For 'Shadow Work'

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the most anticipated album of 2020 (for all the wrong reasons)! Coming back from somewhere between 2002 and complete and total obscurity, here comes the newest most hated band on the face of the planet earth, Trapt! From having one song to being the most discussed band on Twitter and the number one most streamed artist on Pandora, these guys have battled the odds to be able to give us yet another dumpster fire LP. Joining the ranks of such legendary artists as Nickelback, Creed, Puddle of Mudd, Saliva and every other band you’re embarrassed to have on your iPod shuffle, Trapt are back and they’re coming for the throne this time. If you couldn’t tell by now, this is a joke. Trapt is a joke. I won’t lie, I definitely had Headstrong in my guilty pleasure 2000’s WWE Rock playlist, even though these guys have never been a band I took seriously in the slightest. I have to give them more credit than just being a one hit wonder though, as whichever deluded member of the band has taken to Twitter recently has given me more entertainment than any one hit wonder I can think of. I mean seriously, I won’t be surprised if this moron has a diagnosable case of schizophrenia with how hilariously stupid and in everybody’s face he’s been. I guess he wasn’t kidding when he said he’d take on anyone though, man of his word at least. Seriously though, I’m not stupid enough to not be aware of the obvious fact that all of their Twitter antics were just to remind everyone they exist so that their new record would get some plays. I am, however, extremely happy that nobody seems to be falling for the trap.

I’ll be totally honest, when the first two songs on this record came through my speakers, I was a little bit worried that I’d give this record some sort of super high, hot take score like a 5/10 or something. The first two songs on here are actually pretty enjoyable, I’m not even going to lie. Maybe it’s just another fluke like Headstrong was, actually I know they’re both just flukes, but I’m not going to act like I didn’t enjoy those two tracks. They’re extremely basic Drop D Butt Rock tracks designed for the same fanbase as Five Finger Death Punch, but for as bland as they are they’re actually pretty catchy. Just as I was worried I’d have to bite the bullet and admit I didn’t hate this album though, I was saved by the introduction of the third song Tell Me How You Really Feel. I am proud to say that I laughed out loud at the start of this song. I haven’t laughed this hard at a song since the main riff of FFDP’s Trouble first played back in 2018. As if 2020 wasn’t bad enough already, Trapt have come in to save the day by giving us the worst Creed album that’s ever been released. That’s what this is. This is some absolute garbage hybrid between adult Contemporary music and the bottom of the Butt Rock barrel. This is just a garbage Creed album that’s somehow managed to put somebody more insufferable than Scott Stapp on the microphone. This is a trainwreck.

I find it so unbelievably hilarious to hear the same voice that told the world to “move the f*ck on” from Civil Rights whining and wheezing into a microphone about some pseudo-emotional relationship issues. I mean seriously, the idea of Trapt making some garbage relationship Rock is the kind of thing that would fit in perfectly with some sort of stand up comedy bit. It’s absolutely pathetic all the ridiculous lyrical tropes and stupid musical ideas they try to put into recording. It’s actually like they set out to make entire album where almost every song was just Hoobastank’s The Reason. Before the Trapt frontman comments on my review and calls me the “most stupid idiot loser on Twitter” because Hoobastank is more successful than I am, that wasn’t a compliment. These guys have put so little effort and thought into this new record, outside of the first two songs, that they somehow managed to make something worse than the expectations people had for it. They somehow managed to create the biggest joke of an album I’ve heard this year since Blueface’s Find the Beat and Steve Aoki’s 91 minute circle jerk. To make matters worse, the band doesn’t even manage to make every Rock song on this record work. Trying Too Hard is one of the whiniest, most annoying Rock choruses I’ve heard in ages. It sounds like a pathetic chihuahua covered some random Three Doors Down song. I at least thought they’d manage to make the heavier cuts on here work considering the opening two were solid, but they even found a way to mess up the one thing they’re capable of.

I want to make it abundantly clear that I went into this with what I bet is a much more open mind than 90% of the people who listened to it. I actually wanted to like this. After all I still listen to Headstrong occasionally, so why not go into it hoping to get a few more songs like that one that I enjoy? I obviously expected it to be bad, but I at least hoped that it wasn’t. Even with that fully open mindset I was somehow completely blown away with just how horrible and unlistenable this steaming pile of garbage is. It makes total sense that more than half of this album has under 10,000 streams per song on Spotify as of the time of me writing this. I know it’s actually the invisible Pandora listeners that count, but either way I honestly take satisfaction in the fact that people are ignoring this ridiculously awful album. This is legitimately one of the most bland, insufferably cheesy and difficult to take seriously albums I’ve ever heard. I’ve taken the time to write fleshed out reviews on artists like Iggy Azalea, 6ix9ine, Lil Xan and even Doug Walker’s The Wall. Despite my multiple listens (each) to all of those records and many more, this one is one of the funniest I’ve ever heard. I’d say it’s definitely better than all those I mentioned considering there are actually a tiny handful of songs I wouldn’t mind hearing again, but all the rest had me rolling around laughing. When you’re a band that takes yourself so seriously that you will scream and kick at literally everybody that tries to interact with you online, it’s pretty satisfying to hear you make a record so pathetic and cringeworthy that it makes me laugh regularly.

I’m running out of ways to make fun of this, and honestly I’m starting to feel just a little bit bad about it. It’s so great to me that we got to hear somebody who takes himself so incredibly seriously make such an absurd mockery of himself on this thing. As a music critic I definitely think that any artist I review is worthy of criticism, especially any even remotely commercially successful one as that’s definitely punching up. However, bullying Trapt in a five paragraph essay is starting to feel like hurling rocks at a kid on a playground. Despite being the most vocally abrasive band online in recent memory, they are one of the most laughably pathetic and sad sounding musical artists I’ve ever come across. This record is packed full of some of the most disgusting Butt Rock, lame and cheesy relationship Rock failures and horrendously awful vocals and lyrics I’ve ever heard. I usually take the last couple sentences of my reviews and use those as my caption in my Instagram posts, and I want to use a lot of zingers on that post so I’m going to make this one long. Coming at the world hot with an album full of songs that remind me only of Hoobastank’s The Reason, Trapt have solidified themselves as one of the most hated bands of all time with Shadow Work. I’d say they’ve easily sunk beneath Nickelback and Creed as inarguably the most obnoxious, annoying and talentless Butt Rock band to ever drink a Monster Energy drink. Chris Taylor Brown has officially joined the ranks of Scott Stapp, Chad Kroeger and Wes Scantlin as one of the most insufferable and pathetic frontmen to ever lead a Rock band. I hope someone from Trapt reads this review so that I can say that I got to personally tell Trapt that they suck. Please never tweet or make music again. - 0.8/10 (Best Songs - Make It Out Alive, I Want to Want What I Want)