By: Andrew Rawlinson
American Hi-Fi | website | facebook | twitter |
Released on September 9, 2014 via Rude Records
“Her boyfriend, He don’t know, anything, about her, He’s too Stoned, Nintendo”
If those lyrics have your nostalgia senses tingling then welcome back American Hi-Fi into your life, Yes this is THE American Hi-Fi that wrote the pop-punk anthem ’Flavor of the Weak’ that owned and defined 2001 before seemingly disappearing of the face of the planet soon after.
Transpires they have still been kicking about under the radar as ‘Blood & Lemonade’ is their fifth album in 13 years (their first since 2010) with essentially the same lineup throughout and as ‘Armageddon Days’ kick starts proceedings (no fancy intro track here) the obvious point to make is that their sound has matured into driving alternative rock/grunge in the vein of Foo Fighters & Bush with occasional splashes of pop punk and post hardcore for colour.
What they haven’t forgotten to do is write great songs and although there is no equivalent “smash hit anthem” (which is kind of a positive to not overshadow the album) there is no shortage of hook laden melodies to dance about to.
The aforementioned opening track contains a bucketful of these with the amongst the flowing guitar work, however lead single ‘Golden State’ comes a cropper as the vocalists delivery gets stuck in first gear which kills the chorus stone dead which is a shame as the verse and occasional rocks outs are pleasant enough.
Happily ‘Wake Up’ pushes momentum back on track with its upbeat jaunty tempo and a far more dynamic vocal delivery infusing the chorus with energy while ‘Coma’ is anything but with urgent guitar work propelling the band along to a very slick anthemic chorus.
‘Killing Time’ is a late album highlight with Queens Of The Stone Age style RIFFAGE and so it continues as the album rattles along at pace that gets to the point with the ten tracks in total clocking in at 34 minutes, and with ‘Golden State’ being the only “bad” track in sight it’s a very enjoyable collection of rock songs.
