Three Days Grace ''Human'' (2015)

With it's heavy Post Grunge guitar, drums blasting and gritty screams this record hit me back in 2019, discovering it shortly after falling in love with Starset's Transmissions, It felt a bit bare, missing all the electronic quirks that made Transmissions so special yet the energy and magic Human put on me wasn't anything short of what I'd gotten used to from Starset. 

Human hit me straight on with it's Post Grunge, Hard Rock aesthetics, utilising their heavy electric guitar, driving bass, crisp and carrying drums in amazing ways in the form of big crashes and fast riffs, the vocals are nothing to scoff at either, with gritty and raspy voices they produce some amazing and powerful screams that drive home their aggressive sound even further.

This record also knows how to give breaks, with a song like Car Crash we get to experience some more focus on the edgy lyrics I've grown to love from bands like these, they keep simple pickings on the guitar and give the drums a softer feel, the repeated kick drums almost feeling like heartbeats before jumping back into their heavy sound we've heard in all the songs before Car Crash further pushing the lyrics.

At 40 minutes in length this album manages to convey it's darker lyrics and tones perfectly, in 12 songs we touch on loads of topics like humanity, addiction, death and more, all heavy yet hopeful, this record is strangely motivating with it's powerful and meaningful singing. 

I can always come back to this band and more specifically this record, it's one that has grown with me over time, it's high energy always managing to keep my spirits and mood up.

7/10

Death From Above 1979 ''Outrage! IS Now'' (2017) 

On my first listens I quickly fell in love with individual songs by this band, their Dance Punk and Noise Rock feel, their gritty synths, screams and incredible noise produced from Jesse F. Keeler's bass guitar rig consisting of lots pedals and crazy tunings.

As an album Outrage! Is Now lacks some cohesiveness, but their almost DIY Dance Punk aesthetic makes it easy to groove along with these songs and their heavy riffs, aggressive drums and earnest screams. Yet some of these songs are really lacking in vital parts, the record starts of strong with the tracks Nomad and Freeze Me but until All I C Is U & Me I lose the magic those first songs give me, the pacing of these other tracks feels off, giving more attention to synths when this band's focus should be their unique and powerful sound, they just fall short.

The main thing most of these songs are missing is the continuous energy we get in the songs I listed above, Nomad, Freeze Me and All I C Is U & Me, they let their sounds drone through with drums adding some spice to form a nice sound that works along side the vocals to create a powerful combination. In a lot of the other songs like Never Swim Alone, Statues, NVR 4EVR and Holy Books, the strumming of the key component, the bass guitar noise machine is very repetitive with the vocals laid on top of it or riffs that don't integrate well with the vocals due to their energy being so mismatched.

Their sound has gone through a few changes throughout their start in 2001 - 2006 break up and get together in 2011 until now, and yet they don't stray too far from their Dance Punk and Hard Rock roots, in comparison to their 3 albums created before Outrage! Is Now they've become heavier and slower, ditching some of the instrumental quirks and generally refining their sound, a good change in my eyes.

All in all I don't have too much to say about this record but it's one I've wanted to think about and write about anyways, a few great individual songs you can really rock out to, but as an album it lacks some of the magic that I've grown so used to hearing.

6/10

STARSET ''Transmissions'' (2014)

Me from 3 years ago was busy discovering new music when he landed on Transmissions, STARSET's debut album. I was instantly hit with the hard rock and electronic synths in the form of a beautifully crafted sound wall. This 1 hour long album was one of my early encounters with hard rock and really cemented my love for the genre. STARSET's front man and vocalist Dustin Bates blew me away with his incredible vocal range and screams, something I had never heard before at the time. Transmissions was the first album of a book and story written by Dustin, the cohesiveness of this record might just be it's most amazing part.

The aesthetics of this album and story is set in an alternate universe with sci-fi, space and astronomy galore! Instrumentation wise this band plays around with simple drums, ongoing synths and electronics on every track which drive home the theme of the record, additionally the electric guitar almost get drowned out which is a shame, but the cello and violin you can hear in the background of some tracks truly make up for it.

My favourite part of some of these tracks have to be Dustin's screams continuing throughout build ups and drops, his voice will drown out and synths, electronics and harmonics will take it's place, only for you to notice that the scream is still going on 30 seconds later, upon re listening you'll realise that he never stopped. The build ups and drops on these tracks are never disappointing, the wall of sound I described earlier doesn't actually exist, it's so well mixed and layered that you can perfectly pick out individual bits and pieces that form the intricate and complicated sound, it makes you wonder how this was their debut album with no previous releases of individual songs.

 

 Apart from sound STARSET has also mastered the lack of sound, with the layering falling away leaving only some white noise and giving the attention to an individual instrument or Dustin's voice which speaks deep lyrics only for it all to build up again and crash into something beautiful. STARSET is a band you can come back to anytime and listen through an album you've heard tens of times before yet there will still be new things and layers for you to pick out and put your focus on.

8/10