Track by Track: Three Trapped Tigers on their new album Silent Earthling, with album stream

Speaking about the album, guitarist Matt Calvert said: “Some of the tunes are quite aggressive, some are poignant, some are just dumb, rocking fun... I guess we have tried to refine our sound whilst keeping it vital and exciting.” With keyboardist Tom Rogerson adding, “Matt has produced and mixed quite a few records in the intervening years, and his production chops are much stronger, so we've ended up with tracks which are far more sonically detailed than previously, which means it's all a bit more Technicolor… when I listen to it, I still think that we don't really sound like anyone else - even if it's an unholy jumble of all of our tastes - which is as good a reason as any to make music. ”

Stream the album below via Spotify, and read what Calvert and Rogerson had to say about the inspiration behind each track. You can read our review here.

Silent Earthling

Calvert: For a while we were wondering which track should be the album opener and I don't think it could have been anything else. It has a lot of TTT hallmarks, but goes in lots of new directions. As with a lot of these new tracks, the beat came first, and I conceived it very much for Betts to play [Adam Betts, Drummer]. There's something about this track which really embodies the ludicrous title. I always envisioned it having a super expansive, heavy tone - as if you are standing on a cliff face with your eyes rolling into the back of your head, summoning some real power with your fists clenched at the end of your outstretched arms.

Rogerson: I feel this track is quite a departure for us while still sounding very TTT - it's really over-the-top on the synths which sets the tone for the whole album. It's slower both in tempo and in terms of how long it takes to develop and move along, but I hope it pulls people in. We've already opened a couple of gigs with it and that seems to work well. The only problem is I can't shake the image of monks trudging to prayer over the opening rhodes chords.

Strebek

Calvert: The name is from Tom Hanks' character in Dragnet. After "Drebin" on our last album, there's now something of a comedy cop film tradition…

Rogerson: This is one of the tracks that definitely sounds quite computer game-y (there are quite a few). We had a lot more synths to play with on this record so the range of sounds is quite a lot greater, and I think we were less afraid this time to use pretty characterful sounds (eg the sci-fi boss at the start, or the gold coin blips in the middle, or the glory pads at the end). It was also really fun jamming around the outro of this one, which feels pretty loose, and I hope live we manage to keep that energy.

Kraken

Calvert: When this tune finally came together it felt incredibly exciting to play. We made a rough but vibey demo for it in our rehearsal studio and from then onwards had the worst demo-itis ever [i.e. constantly referring favourably to it]. So much so that when we came to record it 'properly' we just had Betts play along to the demo in the studio.

Rogerson: Yes probably the most 'rock' [holds index and little finger in air] track on the record. The middle section is back to some of our earlier 'Betts fills' style of writing - loads of hectic soloistic drumming which is always good to play over. I love it for its absurd goblin synth at the start, and for having a really satisfying vocal section which we don't get to do very much. Matt said somewhere that it felt like a celebration of playing proper rock music which was inspired by our tour with Deftones, which I agree with.

Blimp

Calvert: It's one of my favourites on the album, but I don't expect it to be other people's necessarily. It's alternately proggy/shreddy and glorious/floating, with a slightly off-kilter groove.

Rogerson: I agree with Matt, it's proggy without being ridiculous and still manages to be quite light (esp. after the previous 2 tracks). My personal highlight is the middle section of this track as we finally (unintentionally) get to pay homage to Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Calvert: Maybe unintentional as in subconscious…but I love that sound.

Engrams

Calvert: The origins of this track date back to some of the opening ideas that I had years and years ago, pre-TTT in fact. The title refers to memory so perhaps that's appropriate. I'm not a Scientologist, for the record. It got a jolt of new life when I went to a jungle rave with my DJ friend Son of Mothra. I spent the night getting pummelled by Amen breaks and the next day came up with the beat that is the backbone of the second half - gradually the rest of it followed and became TTT-ified.

Rogerson: As Matt says this is a pretty old track, and is probably the track that got the album going - ie. once Matt had brought it in and we'd started to get it together, it kind of set the tone around which a lot of the album could be written. It's absolutely one of my favourites that we've ever done as it's so euphoric and heavy at the same time. It feels like it nails something that we often strive for but don't always hit: namely electronic-inspired melodic/anthemic rock music. It's been a live staple for a while and still feels really satisfying to play. The title is something to do with Scientology; but I can only see Mario Kart circuits by the time we get to the modulation in the middle.

Tekkers

Calvert: I love funk, but trying to make a 'funk' track for TTT felt risky on paper. This started life as a fully programmed, electronic demo, but I think we've managed to do something that still sounds like us and expands our sound too. 'Groove' always sounds like a slightly naff musical term, but actually groove has long been a key factor to this band when honing our sound - tunes like Cramm and Creepies really focused on finding original grooves. The working title for ages was "Tech Jam" but apart from me, no-one could live with that - and yet our debut album is called Route One or Die. What's in a name?

Rogerson: Developing the band's sound is always the hardest thing when trying to write for TTT, and is probably why we take so long to write our albums. This track never quite measured up live when we tried to play it against Matt's programmed demo: but in the spirit of the whole 'live electronica' thing that got the band going in the first place, Betts eventually managed to get the beat sounding like a perfectly hybridized mechanical-human. That's interesting as it was half about working out the technology, but half about playing it over and over again until it was totally comfortable. Now the drums sound really impressive to me. "Tekkers" is clearly a better name than "Tech Jam" as it works in a West country accent!

Hemisphere

Calvert: The outro of this track is one of my favourite TTT moments. I think the whole track occupies a unique place in our canon so far.

Rogerson: Yes this track was written backwards which is often really hard to do: how do you reach the climax that everyone really loves? It's a proper journey track, and I don't suppose you'd expect to end up where we do in this one. We're all keen to play it live to see how it works. I agree with Matt that this is unique in our canon so far; but I also think we always end up writing something really interesting for our 'ballad' tracks - I'm fond of our previous efforts 4, 9, 13 and Zil in the same way as they all go in different places. I think we all feel that it'd be nice to focus a bit more on exploring these worlds, but we always get carried away with the busy stuff.

Rainbow Road

Calvert: It's quite a playful track for us, but still quite glorious at points despite its slightly ludicrous nature. This was inspired by working with Goldie on a Heritage Orchestra project (that Betts and I play with). I transcribed for the band most of the tracks we played from his album Timeless and got inside Goldie and Rob Playford's process - often using a sample of a chord that would be transposed directly across a sampler keyboard. So I tried to take that harmonically 'naive' idea and write something that could sound like us.

Rogerson: This is a bit of a throwback to our more absurd stuff (7 and 8 off EP2) which I was always really proud of even though it was clearly a bit over-the-top. It's not actually that complicated rhythmically, it's just a bit of a rinse for Betts. There are shades of Allan Holdsworth in there, as well as the 90s references Matt's talking about. We're all sincere about our love for prog, fusion, jungle, D&B etc. even when these haven't always been the most fashionable genres of music. I think the best thing is how joyful it is: that has to come from a genuine place - the reason it's not space-jazz or fusion is that none of us is mugging or winking at the audience while we're playing.

Calvert: That's right, it was inspired by the Goldie stuff but there's a bit in it that sounds very much like Allan Holdsworth "City Nights", which must've been subconscious because I love that track! Goldie does fucking worship Pat Metheny though - a different strain of more glorious fusion that we are indebted to.

Elsewhere

Calvert: Here's a good example of the general process for this album. I would have a programmed beat that Betts would adapt really nicely, and then we'd go from there. It was originally just called "Fast Beat". There are a few bars that sound like a musical link from a particularly earnest morning TV chat show or soap opera.

Rogerson: It was nice to end on a chilled one. We tried to keep the material quite simple and go back to a simple three instrument setup to close: guitar, keys, drums, without too much fanfare or over-topping the rest of the album (the opposite from the last album where we ended with "Reset" which was a real climax that STILL sounded like a morning TV chat show!) This also gave Matt a chance to show off his new effects pedal with its large selection of Pat Metheny presets.

Calvert: Time to resurrect our TV themes EP...

Silent Earthling is out now via Superball Music. Buy it via Superball, iTunes or Amazon now.

Three Trapped Tigers are touring the UK soon, a full list of dates is below

April
17 - Hug and Pint, Glasgow
18 - Think Tank, Newcastle
19 - Fibbers, York
20 - Buyers Club, Liverpool
21 - Deaf Institute, Manchester
22 - Bodega, Nottingham
23 - Rainbow, Birmingham
25 - Purple, Reading
26 - Boileroom, Guildford
28 - Scala, London
30 - Craufurd Arms, Milton Keynes

May
2 - The Lantern, Bristol
3 - The Haunt, Brighton
9 - Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
10 - Portland Arms, Cambridge