It is tempting to label Big Wreck as Canada\u2019s answer to Soundgarden, as the one band that picked up the mantle in 1997 when that Seattle band broke up in 1996. Certainly, Ian Thornley\u2019s voice is eerily similar to Chris Cornell with hints of Dave Matthews and Peter Gabriel, and the band\u2019s pummeling yet melodic attack \u2013 inspired by Zeppelin and Guns \u2018N Roses \u2013 would have fit right at home on Down On The Upside <\/i>or Superunknown.<\/i><\/p>\n
But such a comparison would be both facile and inaccurate. There is a strong DMB current that runs through several of these songs, both in Thornley\u2019s phrasing (check out the verses of the title track) and the band\u2019s tendency to jam and groove a bit, extending these songs well past the five minute mark and a few beyond seven minutes. Like all good groove bands, though, the songs rarely feel that long, as the riffs and rhythm work together in beautiful, pounding harmony.<\/p>\n
Rock radio would be better off ditching its soundalike Seether\/Avenged Sevenfold\/Nickelback\/Saving Abel crap and playing a track like \u201cI Digress,\u201d which melds Slash-inspired guitar on the verse, a melodic neo-psychedelic chorus and Cornell (er, Thornley) effortlessly moving from a growl to a scream to a croon, all while Chuck Keeping drums his ass off. It is an excellent four and a half minutes. It would kick your favorite self-important indie-pop-rock band\u2019s ass up and down the alley, anyway.<\/p>\n
There is a slight progressive rock element to the songwriting, in how the melodies take twists and turns and things don\u2019t quite go as expected, and as such the album is dense and rewarding, none more so than on \u201cFriends.\u201d Multiple listens reveal more each time, especially on the title track, the dueling piano of \u201cMy Life\u201d and the Eastern-inspired \u201cHey Mama,\u201d which recalls Zeppelin\u2019s forays down similar paths interspersed with a Dave Matthews-esque bridge. \u201cCome What May\u201d suggests a leaner, hungrier Foo Fighters and the cover of \u201cWar Baby\u201d is a dynamic, powerful anthem that worms its way into your soul.<\/p>\n
This quintet has been criticized for sounding generic, or too much like Soundgarden, and there are a few moments that embody that. A portion of modern rock fans out there feel post-grunge is dead and anything associated with it is not worthwhile, and that may be true in the case of bands like Seether, but Big Wreck is an exception; not for nothing do they have a cult following. This isn\u2019t retro rock; this is classicist rock, loud and addictive and packed with surprises, and it\u2019s one of the better rock albums you\u2019ll hear this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7389],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-43779","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-big-wreck","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43779"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}