Twin Atlantic – Free
Red Bull
April 29, 2011

I’m a sucker for a band from Ireland.  That accent is awesome to me.  Biffy Clyro, Frightened Rabbit – top notch.  Now, we have Twin Atlantic.  A slightly more revved up and anthemic Jimmy Eat World?  I think that seems like a fairly safe bet.  Listen to those guitars in lead-off track Edit Me.  Yeah, I hear some Jimmy in there.  How about track two, the arena-ready Time For You To Stand Up?

You say you want distance from me / Well don’t stand so close
Cause there’s no where else that you’d rather be.

Oh yeah.  An explosive Jimmy Eat World.  That’s it.

Personally, this one of those albums that falls upon my ear so easily, I don’t even need a second listen through it to know that I’m all about it.  It’s just got a nice, big sound.  Power guitars.  Steady, heavy bass.  Flat-out catchy choruses that beg for a crowd to just be singing them back.  You may think you’re too cool for this, but when the chorus of Apocalyptic Renegade kicks in, there’s no doubt  that you’re gonna have your hands in the air, finger pointed right at vocalist Sam McTrusty, and while he’s screaming out “I WANT IT ALLLLLLLL…..!”, you’re gonna be screaming it right back at him.

What does he want?  What do you want?  Does it really even matter?  Of course it doesn’t – This is a rock anthem!  Your “all” is more than likely the heart of that person you’ve had in your mind the whole evening.  She may even be standing right next to you.  Holy crap, she is…..sing it louder!  “I WANT IT ALLLLLL…..!”

They can do the ballads too, don’t worry.  Crash Land is a perfect example.  It’s just an acoustic with some strings in the background with an overly passionate vocal to back it up.  Are the lyrics really deep?  Not exactly.  Could there be some better writing here?  Sure there could be.  But hey – these are called fun rock songs.  A lot of the lyrics could be one-liners that may mean different relationship things to a million different people.  For example:

Cause I’m stuck here on this island
And I’ve lost her all over again
Nothing gets better than memories
When all you have are memories for friends.
I went searching / When the lights went out
And I went searching / When my flight went down

It’s not really deep, but it’s not really bad either.  It’s accomplishing the mission that it sets out on:  easy to process lyrics for an easy to process song.

I could drag this out further, but there isn’t much more to say, so I won’t force it.

Do you like big, guitar driven, powerful rock songs?  Feeling the drums and bass thump in your chest?  Do you like to sing along (even if you can’t always understand every word because of his accent, that is)?

Welcome.

7/10

If you had to listen to two tracks:  Time For You To Stand Up / Apocalyptic Renegade