By Erine Caine
Elm Staff Writer
When British hard rock band Young Guns’ first album, “All Our Kings Are Dead,” came out in 2010, they played some of the UK’s biggest festivals, including Download Festival, where AC/DC and Aerosmith were among the headliners. With each new effort, the band comes armed with a new round of anthemic, stage-tailored, mosh-worthy tracks, cementing themselves in place as one of the more notable rock acts to come out of the most recent decade. Their fourth studio album, “Echoes,” released earlier this month, is no exception, and resonates in every track with heavy, pulsating, melodic vitality.
The album starts off with the barely-contained “Bulletproof,” a heavy-handed beat pounding over vocalist Gustav Wood’s cry of, “You’re nothing like I ever knew/Somehow, you can’t see I’m bulletproof.” The song, itself, is nothing particularly innovative. It’s neatly tailored to the stage, packed with all the essentials for a rock show opener: a solid rhythm, some intricate guitar work, and lyrics bristling with punchy, rebellious one-liners. Still, it’s hard to deny the infectious energy of the opening track; it’s the kind of song one would feel compelled to turn up the volume for when it comes on the radio. The third track, “Careful What You Wish For,” seems fresher in comparison, its style seeming somehow totally dissimilar to the previous two songs on the album. It’s a track that carries itself with a jauntier, more polished sound, not unlike that of indie band The Killers, and yet it possesses a confident energy all its own. The tracks “Paranoid” and “Mad World” give us a first taste of Young Gun’s particular brand of gritty alternative edged in dark electronica, distinguishing the band as truly a product of the new “modern sound.” Yet their implementation of these conventions is unique, and each song teems with a hardness and a kinetic self-assurance that’s near-impossible to resist.
A notable shift in the album happens halfway through, at the sixth track, “Awakening,” which produces the most thoughtful lyrics so far in the album, as well as Wood’s most emotional vocal delivery. It seems to paint the band as capable of not just a wider scope of sound, but a wider scope of feeling, as well, which is essential in setting an up-and-coming band apart from its peers. Third from last is “Mercury in Retrograde,” which seems far more subdued in comparison to the previous tracks, with its grooving bass line in the verses and easy-going rhythm throughout, somewhat of a relief after the unrelenting energy of previous tracks such as “Bulletproof” and the previous track, “Buried,” which pounds along at an electrifying pace.
“Echoes” seems at the end to devolve into a handful of tracks that slow to a more restrained and thoughtful sound, such as in “Paradise,” a rare piano-driven heartwrencher where Wood’s raw, emotional vocals—given a proper platform—seem to shine through as they haven’t before. The concluding track, “Afterglow,” picks up right where the energy left off, a solid track on its own, but somewhat lackluster as a truly satisfying conclusion to the album. Still, Echoes as a whole is consistent and well-executed, surprising at rare moments, infectious even when it’s predictable. Regarding the album, Wood told CrypticRock, “We never really necessarily had a grand plan or a goal of where we wanted to be, it has always been about writing music that excited us.” Indeed, if nothing else, Young Guns’ music is exciting, not just in its energetic sound, but in its yet-unexplored potential.