Words by Raymond Morin

Ed. note: We love when Pittsburgh people ask to write something special for us, so when our friend Raymond Morin, from the incredible guitar duo Pairdown, offered to review the new Triggers album, we couldn’t resist. Aside from being a guitar virtuoso, Morin has his own guitar-based blog called Work and Worry, so we really didn’t need to ask for any sample writing. So hey, see what Raymond has to say about Pittsburgh’s indie power pop group, Triggers.

Triggers / I Didn’t Sign Up For This
Triggers / Wachusett Blues

I’ve been following the progress of Pittsburgh’s Triggers since the very beginning. I was quickly won over by the whip-smart songwriting on their Smoke Show CD, an ambitious debut that served up a cozy hybrid of Weezer’s melodic sensitivity and The Strokes’ kinetic and geeky sense of cool. Guitarist/singer Adam Rousseau had a seemingly endless supply of twitchy, slinky riffs and these juxtaposed nicely against the tight and informed piano, bass and drum work of Brett Zoric, Joe Kasler, and Rich “Woody” Kawood, respectively. Smoke Show spawned a number of Triggers classics, and increasingly larger crowds still drunkenly sing and lyrical-dance to tunes like “How Do I Get To The Roof?” and “Right Where I Need You” at the band’s live shows.

At the time of Smoke Show’s release, the press was likening the group to The Cars, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, and other eighties pop luminaries… but for all of these comparisons, the band’s premiere recording had its shortcomings. Lyrically inconsistent, even the darker tales of crazy parties and sexual dysfunction are infested with enough “Woos” and “Yeahs” to win a cheerleading championship… and when the auto-tune rears its ugly head, the glossy production finds Triggers sounding dangerously close to a lot of the vapid, WYEP-courting radio-pop that we’ve had to endure in Pittsburgh for the last several years. For me, these quibbles about the way the group is produced and recorded aren’t superficial concerns, and part of me worried that Triggers were a great rock band that made not-as-great albums. Fortunately, those fears were allayed with the arrival of Forcing A Smile, the band’s sophomore album, available now on iTunes.

Forcing A Smile improves on its predecessor in just about every way, shining new light on the band’s vast musical acumen and greatly increasing its songwriting scope. Triggers decamped to Los Angeles to record the album with Dave Trumfio, whose resume includes albums by Mates of State, Built To Spill and The Rentals… but as it turns out, the boys had a lot of time on their own in the studio, and that time was well spent experimenting with instrumentation and sounds, and with the group overdubbing to their hearts’ content. Whereas Smoke Show’s tracks were all cut from the same proverbial power-pop cloth, the songs on Forcing A Smile successfully flirt with a number of different styles, not unlike the mid-period work of The Beatles. There you go, Triggers… you can say you’ve been compared to The Beatles. You’re welcome!

The group have never sounded as muscular as they do on Rousseau’s riff-heavy “Wachusett Blues”. This song covers a lot of musical ground, from its acoustic guitar-driven verses, to its gorgeous, dreamy Mellotron break, to its over the top (in a good way) fuzz-bass and floor tom-laden outro. The track isn’t as schizophrenic as it might sound from my description, far from it… “Wachusett” is as dynamic a song as Triggers have ever written, possessing a restless but well-organized musicality that sets it apart from some of their (comparatively) more pedestrian pop-rock songs.

Less variegated but equally exciting are “Didn’t Sign Up For This” and the penultimate track “Quality Beats”, both written by Zoric. The latter finds three of the four Triggers trading off lead vocals in different sections, and vacillates between major-key riffage in the verses and a more insidious disco-rock feel in the choruses and coda, while “Didn’t Sign Up…” opens the album with confidence and gusto. These tunes, along with “Julia Revisited”, probably bear the most resemblance to Triggers‘ Moog-massaging early material, and fans of the first record will definitely enjoy them… but Forcing A Smile also has its share of welcome surprises: “In The Offing” is a folk-pop gem, featuring a Kinks-esque bridge and great Rousseau/Zoric harmonies throughout, and “I Have My Doubts” is a driving acoustic strummer, with a slight country lilt and guitarmonies that recall Jerry Garcia circa Workingman’s Dead. Even though this is new musical territory for Triggers, as usual, they rise to the challenge without breaking a sweat.

There are a couple songs on Forcing A Smile that, for me, don’t really cut the mustard. It’s not due to inferior ideas, but rather because the band doesn’t put the pieces together exactly right… “Run Fast, Run Far” is a little too beholden to it’s unsettled melody, which has Rousseau alternating between the very top and very bottom of his vocal range without connecting emotionally with either. “Company Dime”, with its flimsy premise and cheesy gang vocals, is a little generic for my tastes. “Yer Bones” has its moments, and has come a long way from early incarnations… but unfortunately, the mumbly verses are hard to follow and less than memorable. All this said, the most mediocre Triggers track stands head and shoulders above the work of many other bands, and in Pittsburgh or anywhere, these guys could be considered standard bearers for great songwriting. Their missteps are few and far between.

My favorite song on the album is closer “The Sequel”, which features an uncharacteristically vulnerable vocal performance from Rousseau. Even though his voice has a beautiful timbre, up until now Rousseau has been known for his almost evasive, hiccup-like delivery, and this has served him well on many of Triggers’ more rocking numbers… but on “The Sequel”, he sings the notes out, getting just enough above a whisper to drive home the heartbreaking chorus: “Sleep tight tonight… next time we’ll get it right.” With imagery of ships setting sail and relationships ending, this might just be Rousseau’s “Boots Of Spanish Leather”. Hell, it might even be better.

Triggers have long been one of the most promising bands in Pittsburgh, and with Forcing A Smile, they deliver on that promise in a big way. If the band continues to evolve at this rate, I can only imagine what might be in store on their third and fourth records, and beyond… but I’m looking forward to it, glad that I can say that I knew them when!

Thanks to Raymond Morin for gathering his thoughts and putting them on paper for us to enjoy. We couldn’t have asked for a better review of Triggers’ latest release. What do you think of the new album? Leave us, Raymond, and the dudes from Triggers some comments below.

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Filed under: Album Reviews, Homegrown Goodness