Tren - Tears of Things, Sorrows of the Universe

Album

4 Jul

The post-rave style of club music has emerged as a response to the modern evolution of EDM (there is a distinction). It draws from seminal genres like deep house, ambient and techno but with a laser focus on rejecting commercialisation. This rejection of evolution spawned a new embryonic subgenre nurtured not by superclubs and celebrity but passion. Labels like Giegling, headed by Traumprinz, aimed to build a music-focused genre, hiding their identities and nurturing slow builds rather than the crowd-pleasing drops of their contemporaries, who often relied on giant super-saws and nauseating builds. This approach has led to the genre becoming saturated with statues and iPhone flashes.

Post-rave's aesthetic leans into the famous Maxy Jazz quote, "This is my church. This is where I heal my hurt," from the legendary track 'God Is A DJ', with tracks combining lush reverbs and swelling delays, blending into a stunning organ tone that evokes a pseudo-religious context. With that in mind, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Tren's latest album, Tears of Things, Sorrows of the Universe (2025), lacks the compact club sound, instead favouring a more open-air dreamscape that draws on themes of escapism, surrender, and euphoria.

Tren breathes new life into the underground with whispers of emotion and an overwhelming subtlety that allows audiences to fall blissfully into them. The opener, 'Movement I', is like a whisper through frosted glass. Tides of chilling emotion radiate from the speakers as Tren sets in to begin. Ticking clocks prelude any rhythm, acting more like a metronome, constantly hypnotising. The clock motif continued throughout the album as kick and clap patterns sound rigid against Tren's swelling atmospheres.

Despite sinking into an aquatic abyssal state, tracks like 'Lumen' and 'Stor' maintain danceability at an all-time high. A mix of shakers and tinny hi-hats complements the reverberant synths, adding something to latch on to. The former sucks you in with cascading droplets of sound that crescendos with a seismic sub-bass. There's no fanfare, Tren adds the missing piece to the puzzle. It's within this pocket that creativity thrives as the ripples of sound fade like a rain subsiding before picking back up again. The latter, however, maintains a constant pulse, drawing on dub techno and minimal to lay the foundations. The quintessential sunrise track holds suspense through repetition. Drums ground the music with a soft syncopated bass, but it's only when the swells enter the fray that everything starts to take shape. Sweeping pastel brushstrokes coat the canvas in technicolour, bringing with them swells of euphoria.

'Aether' taps into the more commercialised sound of ambient techno with some admittedly arm-in-the-air inducing moments, but restrains the urge to go bombastic and blown out. Instead, the track comes across as intimate. Dry snares and delicate hats give a feeling of sitting front row at an empty jazz gig. The percussion is tight, but the echoes ring out, giving a surrealist quality.

A welcome addition to the particular sound of Tren is vocal chops, utilised rhythmically to add depth, in addition to creating a sense of presence and place. The track 'Remembrance' leans into the post-rave ideology with short vocal stabs that dance around the cathedral walls playing into Maxi Jazz's immortal words. Surrounding the vocals is an organ or a choir of voices that elevate the record, while also creating space for brief drum breaks to emerge. On the other hand, the 'Birth of Hermes' uses pithed vocals, allowing for more grandiose imagery to come to the forefront. Grandiose bells lead the charge, yet Tren keeps things unpolarised. Is it an angel falling or a human rising? The vocals accent the chimes, creating a sombre gospel energy.

If it wasn't evident enough already, Tren imparts an effortless cool that becomes more evident when they put their talents to the antithesis of their sound. Capturing that blown-out, over-commercial Tomorrowland feeling, 'Into the Abyss' differentiates itself by focusing on substance throughout. It's an absent-minded hands-in-the-air tune that's the best way. Instead of leaning into catchy euphoria without consideration, Tren creates a dream-like wash full of brassy tones and pulsating bass that's more reminiscent of the minimal Villalobos sound mixed with trance bliss.

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