Trust Company

While America wages war with terrorism, you kind of have to wonder about a song called "The War Is Over" being about the culmination of a cursed romantic relationship. For Trust Company, the choice of song title seems somehow appropriate, as the emotion of heartbreak is their chief obsession. Nearly every one of the songs on this, the band’s third LP, is about a struggling romantic relationship. As a lyrical package, the group’s late adolescent yearnings are strongly reminiscent of Jimmy Eat World, but sonically there’s a much greater reliance upon arena metal here than in the music of JEW.

Trust Company traffics in very familiar territory, from the crunching guitar hooks that propel these songs to the frustrated screams that bullet point the dramatic peaks of choruses to somewhat pat adolescent-isms like "You never listen to me / you think you can see right through me...you never see the true me" ("Fold"). A small handful of power ballads mix things up a bit, particularly "Crossing the Line" and "Silently," but both are buried a little too deep in the album’s second half to make much of an impact.

While this is a great time for an alternative rock band to cross over with an album fueled by emotional lyrical content, the concept feels a little unmotivated. Point blank: if the lyrics were better, this album would be a lot more palatable. "I’m laying down in front of you / to work this through / I needed someone just like you / I needed you" is just not going to cut it with a popular audience eating up increasingly sophisticated emo rock. - Cory O'Malley

With True Parallels, commercial hard rockers Trust Company continue in the vein the band brought forth on its 2002 debut The Lonely Position of Neutral. "Stronger" is an energetic, riff-laden high-production number; it and the rest of the tracks were produced by big-name heavy rock knob-twiddlers Howard Benson and Don Gilmore. melodic noise like "The War Is Over," and loud faceless crunch rock like "Fold" and "Surfacing" are sure to keep the cash registers ringing. ~ John D. Luerssen, All Music Guide