Have you heard Trust’s gothic synth-pop ballad ‘Candy Walls’? Don’t think about it too much; if you have heard it, you’ll remember it instantly – it’s really not the kind of song you forget.
Now, a year after ‘Candy Walls’ first cast a deathly pall over this writer’s turntable, Trust have a new single out this month, heralding the arrival of their debut album. Call us shallow, but the appeal of Toronto-based duo isn’t exactly hindered by their handsomeness. Singer Robert Alfons deserves special mention: he looks almost like a parody of the 80s high school badboy – somewhere between James Hurley in Twin Peaks and J.D. in Heathers, tempting girls away from their homework and onto the back of his motorcycle.
“Most people who live here are too busy trying to get to New York to realise how great they have it aready.”
Wait – what’s that you say? The video for ‘Candy Walls’ actually features Alfons looking dashing and riding a motorcycle?! With a girl on the back? Blimey, so it does. The girl in question is also his musical partner, Maya Postepski; she’s spent the last couple of years lending a dark-eyed intensity, not to mention her considerable tub-thumping skills, to Domino-signed Austra, but it looks like Trust is going to be taking up an increasing amount of her time. After all, Austra don’t have a single motorcycle between them.
‘Candy Walls’ was the first song Postepski wrote together, and to date it’s still their best. Hell, they’ll probably never top it – few could. New single ‘Sulk’ certainly feels rather pedestrian by comparison: there’s an unmistakeable air of “will this do?” to it’s plodding keyboards parts and, most disappointingly of all, Alfons has ditched the plangent Crash Test Dummies baritone he adopted for ‘Candy Walls’ in favour of a higher register that’s more natural, but significantly less compelling. “Some songs just call for a different register,” he offers by way of explanation, if not apology.
‘Sulk’
“Maya makes the crazy,” he goes on to say of Trust’s writing process, “I make the pop.” Alfons and Postepski met around the time that the latter was touring with Cocorosie. Alfons made his new muse a demo of songs, which they subsequently developed together. He’s responsible all the lyrics. What, I ask, are his words about? “Speed, space and tears,” he replies, possibly with more insight than he intends.
“Maya makes the crazy, I make the pop.”
Given the gloominess that pervades Trust music, they must hate their hometown, right? They’re probably waiting to escape to the bright lights and bijoux studio spaces of Brooklyn, right? OK, wrong: “Toronto’s been a good city to me,” Alfons reckons, “But most people who live here are too busy trying to get to New York to realise how great they have it already.”
Trust’s debut album, TRST, is due to be released by Arts & Crafts International – the Canadian label home to Broken Social Scene, The Hidden Camera et al – a little later this year. Alfons describes it as an “ooze of neon tar in your ear”, which bodes well. As long as ‘Candy Walls’ figures in its tracklist, we’re all over it.
Lucy Langham
myspace.com/trst
