The three piece from Belgium are back with their fourth studio album and it’s full of big riffs as well as a few more sombre moments as the band reach out to personal turmoil for inspiration. Starting things off is “Game” with plenty of distorted guitars that will make Clutch and Queens of the Stone Age fans take note.
It’s then straight into more rock n roll with “Perfect Match” and title track “By absence of the Sun”, both of which bring a bit more of a funky groove to your speakers and hint at the possibility there may be more to Triggerfinger than first meets the eye.
Before things change too much and with the need for more noisy guitars, the grunge fuelled “Big Hole” shows the bond the trio have as guitarist/vocalist Ruben Blocks battles it out against the bass of Monsieur Paul, the electricity perfectly captured by Greg Gordon in the production, nothing fancy other than raw energy straight from the recording.
In contrast the slow descriptive “Off the Rack” and “Halfway There” are songs containing a more personal lyrical story, for Block acknowledges a world in which celebrates the success of the band on the road whilst struggling with illness amongst those loved ones back home.
Things don’t get Triggerfinger down for long though as “Black Panic” and “There she was Lying in Wait” rock out with a vengeance whilst “Trail of Love” has the group at their most experimental with tinges of British act Muse before “Master of all Fears” ends the album in more slabs of stoner-rock goodness in a similar vein as to which it started.
