The Other Side Of Love showcases a distinct set of qualities that appeal on a deep and addictive level. The opening guitar delicacy, the gentle rasp and increasing passion of the leading voice, the poetic and thoughtful lyrics, the rising intensity, the eventual raw rock energy; all of this works gorgeously within.
Alt Rock
In Holy Ghost, we have an extraordinary single. It seems to want to ignore conventional structure (and conventional wisdom) to be a stand-alone sonic delight.
“The song explodes into its final field, reverting back to this idea of the land of hope and glory, these references to death and suffering; the music is heavy and chaotic, vibrant and loud, and the vocal offers a similar level of madness and desperation as the words pour through.”
It’s a dizzying and somewhat psychedelic experience, building to a schizophrenic whirlwind of deliberate dissonance and beauty that’s mashed together before being led to a marching string finale. It’s a singular listening experience that I‘d whole-heartedly recommend, with an extraordinary accompanying video that provides a complementary, slightly unnerving experience. Try both!
He uses his voice for texture as much as for carving out an individual niche as a vocalist and I’m led to the conclusion that Ete serves the song. Whatever is needed to serve the song is the right artistic choice, and I can only applaud decisions like that with all my heart.
It rocks along, chock-full of character and has swagger to spare. Beholden to a wealth of sounds and songs that you think you can half-remember, it somehow carves a furrow all its own. Excellent fun!
A lot of reviewing is predicated upon making comparisons between the subject and other acts that the readership might know, but with The Lost Millions, this is more of a challenge than usual, and that’s a real feather in their cap.
Kicking off with the explosive blues-rock swagger of Killing Heroes, Initial Mass leave their mark pretty quickly on this latest album, fusing the raw rock energy of bands like The Black Keys with a more traditional, performance-based rock hook and rise-up to it.
“Today’s music is so lacking in melody and harmony. There’s not a lot of innovation anymore. Anyone can sit in their home studio and use some electronic beats and sounds and make a song, but after a while it all sounds the same.”
Some Kind Of Voodoo opens up the playlist and kicks things off with a bang, seeing the band fuse a structurally complex and somewhat grunge-like aura with a melodic development and leading vocal that feel way more prog-rock and performance-based than anything else.
Color and Contrast is a really strong collection of rock tracks, making for a playlist that feels something like a greatest hits album. There’s a striking sense of identity and confidence to Underwood’s delivery, and his songwriting is easily captivating and often familiar enough that the songs feel like slept on classics.
Troy Petty has evidently mastered being musically true to his own artistic and expressive needs, offering up an album of original songs that pour through with absolute creative freedom yet a clear passion for and connection to the very process of writing and performing.