4 out of 5

Label: Tortuga

Producer: Andrew Schneider

Credit where its due: while I’d already been collecting Hydra Head and Tortuga by this point, ‘Mantrapping’ was the disc that shook me out of only listening to Cave In-esque hardcore and helped grow my appreciation for tried and true rock.  As ‘generic’ as one could say Scissorfight’s tunes and themes are (I say that while rating them second to none when it comes to beer-guzzlin’, hillybilly hardcore), getting into this disc opened my ears to music I just wasn’t hearing before.  And I saw that it was good.

Howwwwever, upon a relisten, this is probably SFight’s ‘safest’ album in the sense that it just does what it does, cut and dry, lacking the sloppy rumble of earlier albums or the comfortable nigh-experimentation on Jaggernaut.  Every track is catchy as hell, but the burning rage of opener ‘Acid for Blood’ or the more anthemic ‘Hazard to Navigation’ or ‘Death in the Wilderness’ aren’t the dominating tracks in the runtime.  Instead we get a whole lot of ‘New Hampshire’s Allright If You Like Fighting,’ ‘The Most Dangerous Animal Is Me,’ ‘Hammerdown,’ and etc., all tightly executed and produced, but almost total posturing, Ironlung’s growl sounding habitual and not as inspired.  Yes, part of the group’s shtick is posturing, but I’d argue that there’s a flippancy fuck-off aspect to it that I just don’t get here.  The tracks mostly hit one pace, one aggressive note; not to dismiss how memorable the choruses or riffs are (though ‘Candy Clark’ and ‘Go Cave!’ are almost the same song…), simply noting that this was a kick in the, er, pants to my fresh ears at the time, but now more familiar with SF’s bag of tricks, none of the songs stretch too far for anything new.

This is like the most critical good review I’ve given.  The bottom line is still that I love this disc.  But now owning all of the group’s catalogue, its the one I return to the least, simply because everything that’s here can be found in an amped up version elsewhere, making this what it was for me: an excellent intro to the band and their gist, fully displaying their tight-knit rollicking sound and warming you up to some appealing excesses they’ve committed on other albums.