Triggertone – Bombs Away
Triggertone – Bombs Away
Self-Released
Release date: 02/10/26
Review by Jon Deaux
8/10
There are two types of rock bands in 2026. First, there are those that spent the past six months creating their “sonic identity” in some warehouse with exposed brickwork. Second, there are those who recently got a call from the landlord saying he was going to drop by very soon.
Triggertone certainly belong to the latter type.
Bombs Away is a four-track record of Belfast alternative rock played with such grim determination that it may be compared to driving the Ford Transit on the highway with a pack of wolves running after it. This is grunge. This is stoner rock. This is alternative metal. It is melodic. It is sometimes beautiful. However, in general, it sounds like somebody had entered the rehearsal room and asked “OK, who is pissed off?”
Three-piece Belfast band definitely spend too much time studying the great riff masters of the ’90s and know well that you don’t need 47 guitar tracks and the computer that can calculate the mass of Jupiter to create the record. Guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. Four ingredients. Just like frying some eggs, only louder and better for your heart.
“Pray” kicks the album off with a sufficiently cynical attitude towards the cult mentality, authoritarianism, and media manipulation. It is a song that makes one think of everything he or she has been told until the moment when he or she realizes that they still have to go to work tomorrow.
The track has a fantastic clean bridge that momentarily removes armor until the riffs strike again. Triggertone are really great in this respect with Bombs Away: they create something heavy enough to tear the plaster from the walls, and then come up with a melody and make one wonder whether these guys have feelings or not.
“Room 1046” is where it gets weird. Some bands write songs about relationships. Some bands write songs about drinking. Triggertone decided to go to some murder mystery novel of the 1930s about the hotel room since, supposedly, Netflix was not replying to their calls.
The result is one of the best tracks of the EP. There is definitely some Alice in Chains gloom surrounding the riff, but the song does not just put on Layne Staley’s coat and start walking feeling miserable. There is tension, atmosphere, and even a plot. One can almost smell cigarette smoke, wet carpet, and the terrible decision that has been made upstairs.
Then comes “The Fade”, and things suddenly become strangely human. It is a song about depression, which is a difficult topic to touch upon without sounding like a motivational speaker who just discovered the existence of distortion pedals or turning it into the miserable poetry reading in the room where nobody remembers to turn on the heating.
The song descends into the darkness but does not wallow in it and discovers the thread of hope and self-respect in the end. It does not feel like some cheap emotional payoff. It feels earned. And after having torn apart organized belief systems and murdered hotel guests in the first two tracks, Triggertone’s vulnerability is more shocking than expected.
Next comes “Bombs Away”, and subtlety is dragged to the street and shot. The title track is an anti-war explosion with so many riffs that any peace conference requires ear protectors. The song has a thick and dirty stoner-rock groove below it, and the chorus always seems to reach for something much grander and melodic. Then, just in case, because there is not enough happening – Triggertone manage to pull off an absolutely unnecessary guitar solo reminiscent of Jimmy Page’s one.
It is where the unique chemistry of Triggertone starts showing its effect. There is no place for the three-piece band to hide. There is no keyboard player in the corner who plays only two notes every eight bars. There is no rhythm guitarist who pretends to be busy and plays the same riffs twice. There is no army of the session musicians who wait backstage with the spreadsheet.
Ben Graves’ guitar playing is filled with the grit that would satisfy anybody whose idea of a relaxing afternoon is listening to “Dirt” at the ridiculous volume, and his vocals can switch from wounded to snarling without making it sound like he is trying to beat Chris Cornell in the pub karaoke competition.
Ruaidhri Houston’s bass is especially important. It is not just there, below the guitars, and watching after the kids. It claws, it pushes, and occasionally tries to escape from the building. The backing vocals and screams add the additional weight to the performance while Brendan Scullion provides the perfect rhythmic basis.
Triggertone show surprisingly good melody-making talent. Vocal arrangements save the songs from the usual swamps of the downtuned guitars and men looking intensely at the floor.
Not that Bombs Away could not have been another record where everything is “dark”, everything is “raw”, and every song seems to be recorded in some condemned chimney.
Production by Neal Calderwood deserves the praise as well. The decision to keep the room sound and performance authenticity gives the EP the physical dimension. One can hear the band occupying the same room instead of being surgically assembled from thousands of microscopic studio pieces.
While the rest of the music industry seems to rush to the future where the laptop could generate a band, write its biography and manufacture the childhood trauma for the singer, Triggertone insistently stick to the radical idea that three sweaty humans playing the loud guitars together are still worth something.
There are flaws in the EP. Some ideas could be worked on further, and sometimes the influences of Triggertone are so obvious that one can see their ’90s record collection. But that is what makes it interesting as well. Bombs Away does not try to pretend that Triggertone are from another planet with the revolutionary new frequency that would heal capitalism.
Four songs on Bombs Away are about the cults, murders, depressions, and wars which is quite a range for an album shorter than the introduction of some bands on their live concerts. However, the EP holds together thanks to the coherent central theme. The world is messy, people are complicated, and sometimes the only reasonable thing to do is to form a three-piece band and make enough noise to annoy the apocalypse.
Is it revolutionary? No.
Is it polished to death? Fortunately not.
Does it sometimes sound like five different ’90s rock albums have climbed into the skip and started fighting? Absolutely.
However, after the dust settles, Triggertone still stand there, covered in the feedback and rather pleased with themselves.
They have earned that.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Pray
02. Room 1046
03. The Fade
04. Bombs Away
LINKS:
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