I Privail - Trauma

Trauma is I Prevail's second album, and a band naming their record after mental health isn't overselling it, this one was written from inside the wreckage.

I Prevail arrived fast, riding a viral acoustic cover of Blank Space straight into a deal, and their debut Lifelines got them radio play but also got them tagged as generic, a metalcore band playing it safe. Then frontman Brian Burkheiser developed a vocal cord polyp that shut down their 2017 tour and sent him into a real depression, not a lyric-sheet version of one. Trauma, released in 2019, is the sound of a band refusing to shrink back into what made them famous, pushing in both directions at once, poppier where it wants a hook and heavier where it wants to hurt.

Bow Down opens the record like a gauntlet thrown down, all chugging riffs and a chorus built to be screamed back, while Rise Above It brings in rapper Justin Stone for a detour that doesn't feel like a stunt. Every Time You Leave pairs Burkheiser with vocalist Delaney Jane on the album's most wounded chorus, and Let Me Be Sad does something rare for this genre, it just sits in the sadness instead of trying to fix it.

Trauma is proof I Prevail's name means more than a viral cover now.

TRACKLIST:

Side A:

1. Bow Down (4:03)
2. Paranoid (2:25)
3. Every Time You Leave (3:37)
4. Rise Above It (3:04)
5. Breaking Down (3:26)
6. DOA (3:16)

Side B:

1. Gasoline (2:34)
2. Hurricane (3:43)
3. Let Me Be Sad (3:34)
4. Low (2:45)
5. Goodbye (Interlude) (3:04)
6. Deadweight (3:04)
7. I Don't Belong Here (3:42)