In 2013, LA’s Beware Of Darkness released their debut album Orthodox, a fairly explosive introduction full of slithery Zep-isms slathered with emotionally raw lyrics from frontman Kyle Nicolaides. It shook up an otherwise stagnant year for rock’n’roll and set them up as next-big-things.
Well, they waited that shit out and have returned with a wallop of a follow-up that doesn’t necessarily reinvent the band, but certainly nudges them further away from the more hoary classic rock moments of their past and into something decidedly newer and shinier.
There’s smoky blues, sure, and there are booms of black-leather thunder, but it all sounds decidedly futuristic, like the first Top 10 hit of the 22nd century. The obvious singles – the slinky Motherfucka and the swirly Beatles pastiche Dope – open the album in style, but its richest rewards are deeper cuts like the psychedelic jangler Surrender and the gorgeously gigantic Sugar In The Raw.
