Traitors is a downtempo deathcore band from Florida that have made quite the name for themselves over the past three years with albums such as The Hate Campaign and their most recent EP, Night Terrors. Seen as an obscenely heavy group along the lines of Black Tongue and I Declare War, their second full-length album, Mental State, was teased to be something“nu” for the group.
Starting off with a familiar sound in the track “No Sympathy” and progressing toward later songs on in the album like “Nu Hate,” you get a pretty decent taste of two different ends of the spectrum. You even get something a little faster than usual with the song “Wornout,” which is a more than pleasant surprise. Tyler Shelton has a very unique tone which should be enough to keep you interested even if you aren’t a fan of the overdone, simple 0-0-0-1 chug. Instrumentally, the album feels like a Traitors record with some differentiated riffs and drum patterns every now and then. Songs like “Egotrip” and “Empathy” provides the same slams we’ve come to expect of the band. This part of their sound is consistent despite the slight changes they’ve made. It’s good to see Traitors step out of the mainstream downtempo sound and do something nobody else has really tapped into (as of yet) on this new record.
One area Mental State disappoints is in its lacks of guest vocals. While this was intentional - the band didn’t want the hype for Mental State to center only on the features - it almost seems like a mistake in hindsight. I can see myself revisiting Mental State, just not as much as I revisited Night Terrors or the original self-titled EP. You can catch Traitors playing almost every state (other than Connecticut...) on tour with The Last Ten Seconds of Life and Spite right now.
If you get a chance to meet the guys, ask Shelton to grill you something.
Archival details
- Original URL
- https://metallifestyle.weebly.com/metal-lifestyle/review-traitors-mental-state
- Recovery source
- live-weebly
- Recovery date
- 2026-07-22
- Stewardship polish
- 2026-07-22
- Preservation status
- restored
- Missing assets
- None recorded
Preserved by Bloodsoaked Media · The Archives