Off With Their Heads – “From The Bottom”
Off With Their Heads – “From The Bottom” While it still sounds like Ryan Young has been clearing his throat with gravel and whiskey allowing for his singing style to not budge much beyond a defined rant, Off With Their Heads takes quite a few melodic back roads during its trip down the Power Pop highway. After a relatively powerfully conventional opening salvo, OWTH launches into the enormous power chords of "1612 Havenhurst." that makes your heart flutter and mind race. "Until The Day.." becomes the first of quite a few of Off With There Heads tunes to hammer almost incessantly on one churning guitar note as the rhythm section stops, starts, or rolls with fury underneath Ryan’s often impactful lyrical limericks. The formula never grows old, especially when it's paced with more tuneful moments and thought, it’s a 12 song album, that leaves you wanting more. Off With Their Heads certainly hasn't softened on this album. If anything, they play harder, louder and faster, the tunes detonate, one after another, like a volley of mortar fire. Still, the band knows how to incorporate pure pop sweetness into their relentless assault without ever coming close to cheesiness; rather, the broken-heart sentiments of songs like "Ten Years Trouble" and "For The Four" are made more poignant by their gruff delivery. All the intangibles are there: energy, conviction, and sincerity. Singer Ryan Young, always deeply guarded and skeptical of the government, apathy, and conformity, attacks those targets with articulate enthusiasm as usual. This album is so well written it takes a lot more intellect then the usual punk album to fully digest the lyrics and how deep they truly are. This album is without a doubt on the top of my year end top whatever lists.
5/5 Stars
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