Bronx – IV (2013)
The Bronx must be one of the best bands in the world in any genre. Put simply, over the course of 4 albums they have yet to show any chink in their musical armour, delivering pure, unadulturated and righteously life-affirming punk rock that manages to be simultaneously relentlessly enjoyable and challenging. ‘IV’ is a little more upbeat than the band’s first three records, adding a dash more pure rock ‘n’ roll into punk rock fury which tempers the aggression with groove and ‘fuck you’ cool. As ever, the songs are as punchy as they are impactful: ‘The Unholy Land’ provides an incendiary blast to mundane existence – ‘Are you the anti-Christ or the Holy Ghost?/ Do you wanna die or get real close?’; ‘Style Over Everything’ serves up hook after hook without ever tempering the fury; whilst ‘Torches’ is the way The Gaslight Anthem would sound if they had something to say. What makes the Bronx so special is that they are not a hipster band. They’re cool, certainly. But they’re not affected. It is a sign of considerable songwriting skills when you can build such distinctive songs from very simple ingredients, and that the Bronx also make an uncomplicated rock vocabulary so impactful is, put simply, genius.
The band’s songs have always possessed a cinematic quality: they’re certainly aggressive and abrasive, but they’re more sweeping than that. Hence the storytelling of ‘Youth Wasted’ and ‘Public Light’, bittersweet globules of hard-strewn wisdom light-years beyond anything which the 20 year old kids with $100 haircuts into the scensters bands are capable of producing. Still managing to be incredibly intense without ever coming close to being overwhelming, the Bronx continue to stagger in their ability to drop anthems with the ease that a hooker drops her pants. We’re only a third of the way in, but it will be a very special band indeed that knocks this off the ‘Album of the Year’ spot in 2013.
The Bronx must be one of the best bands in the world in any genre. Put simply, over the course of 4 albums they have yet to show any chink in their musical armour, delivering pure, unadulturated and righteously life-affirming punk rock that manages to be simultaneously relentlessly enjoyable and challenging. ‘IV’ is a little more upbeat than the band’s first three records, adding a dash more pure rock ‘n’ roll into punk rock fury which tempers the aggression with groove and ‘fuck you’ cool. As ever, the songs are as punchy as they are impactful: ‘The Unholy Land’ provides an incendiary blast to mundane existence – ‘Are you the anti-Christ or the Holy Ghost?/ Do you wanna die or get real close?’; ‘Style Over Everything’ serves up hook after hook without ever tempering the fury; whilst ‘Torches’ is the way The Gaslight Anthem would sound if they had something to say. What makes the Bronx so special is that they are not a hipster band. They’re cool, certainly. But they’re not affected. It is a sign of considerable songwriting skills when you can build such distinctive songs from very simple ingredients, and that the Bronx also make an uncomplicated rock vocabulary so impactful is, put simply, genius.
The band’s songs have always possessed a cinematic quality: they’re certainly aggressive and abrasive, but they’re more sweeping than that. Hence the storytelling of ‘Youth Wasted’ and ‘Public Light’, bittersweet globules of hard-strewn wisdom light-years beyond anything which the 20 year old kids with $100 haircuts into the scensters bands are capable of producing. Still managing to be incredibly intense without ever coming close to being overwhelming, the Bronx continue to stagger in their ability to drop anthems with the ease that a hooker drops her pants. We’re only a third of the way in, but it will be a very special band indeed that knocks this off the ‘Album of the Year’ spot in 2013.
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