Trencher "Skullcrusher": Bleeding Priest's Bay Area Metal Spotlight 19
- Bleeding Priest
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
What's up people and welcome back to another edition of Bleeding Priest’s Bay Area Metal Spotlight. Today I will be covering Hectic Records / Bleeding Priest Records’ latest release, Trencher Skullcrusher.
This album is actually two EPs on one vinyl LP. It has the Skullcrusher EP from this year and it also has last year's Trench Metal EP. This is great stuff from Oakland. I have known the singer and guitarist Marcus for quite a while. We go back a ways. I knew him when he was singing for the band Hatchet from Santa Rosa or from Petaluma. My old band Scarecrow played a number of shows with Hatchet back in the mid to late 2000s.
There was quite a bubbling young thrash scene happening in the Bay Area around that time, around 2005 to 2010. Scarecrow was right in the middle of that. We were not so young, but we were new, and we were playing with bands like Hatchet, Fog of War, Zombie Holocaust, and many others.
Marcus was the singer for Hatchet and they were the biggest band of the bunch. They got signed to Metal Blade and he sings on their first album. I cannot remember what the album is called, something Evil. But he sings on their first album and then exited the band shortly after it came out. Something I know a lot about recently.
Talk about the worst timing ever for a band: you put out a record and then your lead singer is no longer there. It is the worst timing ever. I do not think Hatchet ever really bounced back from that. They have had different versions of the band since then, but they have not been so active. They were playing all the time back then.
Marcus was in a handful of bands between then and now, like Satan's Blade and a few others. When he told me he was in Trencher, I was intrigued because I always liked Marcus and thought he was a talented dude, a good singer.
He actually tried out or was in Scarecrow for a split second. We recorded a demo with him that never got released because it did not turn out that well, and he will be the first to tell you that. He even apologized to me recently about how that demo turned out.
He sang a few shows with Scarecrow, maybe three or four, even a show in LA. Then we just kind of broke up because Death Angel took me and Damian from Scarecrow, so it all fell apart. Marcus was in the band for a brief moment. But let us get back to this record.
This is a killer release. Both EPs are awesome. Oddly enough, I like the first EP a little bit more, the Trench Metal EP a little bit more, but they are both awesome. Trencher is a great live band. They have a new drummer who definitely ups the game and has broadened their sound a little bit.
I am looking forward to their new recording with the new drummer because there is definitely going to be a progression there. I do not mean they are going to be less metal or progress into something we do not want to hear. I mean they are going to be more metal. There will be more double bass and more metallic thrash drum beats.
I just saw them two nights ago at Toots Tavern in Crockett and they rocked. They had a good crowd, great energy, and an awesome show. I also did a review of it on SanFran666co. It goes into greater detail about some of my gripes about the sound, but I will not get into that now.
Pick this up at hectic.com. We just repressed it and we are getting new versions of it. It is the same thing with no changes in the artwork but on red vinyl. The new second pressing comes in about a week, so we will be well stocked. I will see you soon.
Go Niners!
–Bleeding Priest
