Description:
Triathalon – Funeral Music (2025)
Review:
Grist for romantic misfortune never runs out. New York trio Triathalon — Adam Intrator, Hunter Jayne and Chad Chilton — have been busy at the mill producing 15 ways to leave your lover, or not. All this confusion is semi-whispered as interior dialogue over a mix of slowcore tropicalia and dream-pop sprinkled with the occasional outburst of restrained 1990s indie loud. The band members, who met at the Savannah College of Art and Design, cite the Pixies and Nirvana as influences on Funeral Music, but it largely sounds more like a murkier albeit funkier kin to Josh Haden’s Spain. Self-aware young fellows mooning over the unbearable weight of being that guy, expressed with requisite spite towards self, other and life, has long been the hallmark of the sensitive. The vibe here, and Triathalon are nothing if not vibey, is ironically summery. Funeral Music turns out to be an afternoon cocktail picnic of a record. Just enough to get you tipsy, not quite enough to have you reaching for the pills. For all the lies told, tears shed, things said and left unsaid, self-harm ideation and the like, the voice stays lulling, apart from some ill-advised chipmunk vocoder work on “Your Eyes,” and the music rarely loses its sang-froid. The trio immerse humble bragging — “I’m good at being useless/Don’t even have to try/I’m good being foolish/Never been satisfied” — in some lovely melodies which they adorn with just enough bespoke smudge to keep things interesting. Organs swell and squiggle over tastefully restrained drum patterns; the bass burbles along adding a warmth to the bottom end and guitars strum and pluck, throw the odd tantrum, and return to sunnier climes. Even the shoegaze catharsis of “RIP” feels like languid chemtrails dissipating behind a distant jet engine. Yet this is a very easy record to get lost in. The songs pass in a haze, broken by trio of short but enticing instrumental pieces. The title track, a minor key organ memento mori, “Melt” a jazzy tropical lounge party and “Eulogy” a swell of shredding guitars. Taken together they triangulate the key points of Triathalon’s sound. It’s a testament to the trio’s skills that their vapor trail of vibe never descends to the vapid. — dusted
Track List:
01 - My Love
02 - Chevy
03 - Down
04 - RIP
05 - Clover
06 - Funeral Music
07 - Last Night
08 - See You Smile
09 - Melt
10 - Way Out
11 - Jordan
12 - Salt
13 - Wall
14 - Your Eyes
15 - Eulogy
Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, indie-rock
Origin: New York, USA 
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.3.0 (UTC 2013-05-26)
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