SOUND JUDGEMENT

THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED

EVERYTHING NOT SAVED WILL BE LOST – PART 2

ALTHOUGH cut from the same Grade A cloth, the follow-up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1, manages to usurp its predecessor – and that’s no easy feat.

The album is a powerful eruption of what we have come to expect from Foals of late: intense, foreboding rock tracks, with a couple of more melodic and upbeat tunes to lighten the mood. Every song is a triumph; you’ll find no fillers here. One thing is for sure; Foals keep getting better and better, this album proving the pinnacle of their career thus far.

JIMMY EAT WORLD SURVIVING

JIMMY Eat World are not a band known for venturing outside the hook-laden guitar sound they helped carve out but on this record they reach for the future by turning back to the past.

That music – the heavy metal of Quiet Riot, Ratt and Motley Crue – seeps into Surviving and adds a punk-rock edge that has been missing from their recent records. There’s even a political slant to some of the music – Criminal Energy alludes to Donald Trump’s narcissism – while frontman Jim Adkins provides his trademark soaring vocals.

Surviving is unlikely to surprise fans of Jimmy Eat World. But it might make them fall back in love with them.

YUNGBLUD

THE UNDERRATED YOUTH (EP)

YUNGBLUD’S riotous, hedonistic six-track release is a call to action for those of his generation. The rocky chaos, the provocative lyrics and genrebending style of the EP could easily be described as “Punk Lite”.

Highlights include the the clever, rock-pop track Parents, in which this feisty up-and-comer chants that “it’s alright, we’ll survive, ‘cause parents aren’t always right”, and the Linkin Park flavoured Hope For The Underrated Youth. The strongest track is Original Me with Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds, a song about self-acceptance and being authentic, a real 2019 hot-button topic.