March 11, 2015 – Cancer Bats, Lieutenant, Will Butler

Madonna’s Rebel Heart came out this week, and I think everyone should be focusing on that piece of musical genius. That being said, a few other great things made appearances on the Upcoming Albums list I obsessively pore over. Here’s the few I was looking forward to.

Cancer Bats – Searching For Zero

Toronto natives like Drake, but only sweethearts in the hardcore scene, Cancer Bats are back with their 5th studio album. Searching For Zero reminds me a lot of their previous few outputs, meaning, of course, that it’s good– but that’s all it is. The guitar is wet, somewhat muddy– reminiscent of their older work, but seemingly lacking in inspiration and any new forms of sound or influence. I wouldn’t want to call it “flat” because, after all, Searching For Zero is still impressive. Of course, I’m never going to stay it’s a bad album. As a stand-alone record, I’d be dead stoked on this. I guess because they went silent and supposedly put a lot of effort into this, I expected more of the “serious banger” I was promised, rather than the similarly recycled old stuff I’d already listened to a few years prior. 

Rating: 5/10

Lieutenant – If I Kill This Thing We’re All Going To Eat For A Week

Known to vague people like myself as “the guy from Sunny Day Real Estate and also Foo Fighters,” Nate Mendel is the bassist for both, and Lieutenant is his new project, where he expands his role– in Lieutenant, the musician takes over singing, guitar, and songwriting. This debut still pushes the indie sound of Sunny Day Real Estate– it’s probably something that’s hard to break away from, but it works. The influences of both Foo Fighters and SDRE are obvious, but the soft, intense lyrics of Sunny Day are more evident to me, as someone who listened to them a lot more than I ever listened to the Foo Fighters. It reminds me of summer sunsets in my teenage years, when sounds like these– rowdy but soft guitar, sensitive lyrics– were the soundtrack to every adventure my friends and I had. A delightful first attempt for an already-seasoned musician, If I Kill This Thing… impresses with its great grasp on emo nostalgia, without actually pushing it too far. I’d be surprised if it was bad.

Rating: 8/10

Will Butler – Policy

I always forget that Arcade Fire are actually a good band, and when I find myself enjoying their music, I’m always mildly annoyed. Still, Will Butler does good work, and I will always admit that. The Her soundtrack was beautiful, and Policy is really just as good as any Arcade Fire album. Actually, maybe a bit better, because multi-instrumentalist Butler finally had full creative control to make the project he wanted. I don’t know what I expected. A similar indie sound to Arcade Fire? Whatever he was going for, I think he got it. There’s a variety in sounds– it jumps from upbeat and catchy to the obligatory slow and piano-backed and right back again, but somehow, each song flows perfectly into the next.”Anna” is probably my favourite track on the LP, its melody just catchy and wonderful. In a true measure of how much I appreciated this album, I almost sent “Sing To Me” to an ex-lover of mine.  

Read our full review by Andreas Babiolakis here. 

Rating: 8/10