State Of Emergency

Author: Unknown

For their latest album, The Living End adopt the urgency of the record’s title. Sure, the attributes for which we know and love the band are still there: the thumping rockabilly beats, Chris Cheney’s anthemic choruses and stinging lead guitar. But the simple, air-punching sloganeering of Second Solution and Prisoner of Society are replaced with a more nervous energy in Long Live The Weekend and even desperation in No Way Out. Then there’s the surprising down-tempo single Wake Up, ending in a sinister mantra delivered by a kiddie chorus (“Suicidal education that got sold to our generation”).
This is a more complex, frightening world The Living End are presenting to us, but the rigorous big-chorus rock & roll of Till The End ensures the fans shouldn’t be too alienated.
There’s still a sense of fun in the Ronettes beat of Order Of The Day, showing that the boys thankfully still possess a lightness of touch, while We Want More and What’s On Your Radio are loud and triumphant.
A bigger, denser noise is rarely heard in a three piece.