Guitarist Zack Lopez and drummer Sean Stockham admit that they’ve used a few studio tricks to beef up their sound on this second album, but anyone who has seen this Californian pair live will confirm that the driving force of this unholy racket is their own raging rock’n’roll energy.
Yet behind the pummelling rhythms, gut-stabbing power chords and hollering, Perry-Farrell-on-meth vocals are some fine pop songs. Born Too Late, Police Man and Leech are laden with hooks, whether they’re melodic motifs or visceral chunks of riff, and they serve to give this record an immediacy that few similarly heavy acts could match.
The love-gone-sour subject matter of No More and the perennially distressed vocal delivery suggest an emo influence, but there’s a robust, bluesy groove underpinning many of these songs that make MCR’s sound into their own.
The reverb-drenched production sometimes makes the whole thing sound like it was recorded in someone’s back garage, which may well be no accident, but turned up to speaker-bulging levels, it starts to make more sense. And I suspect that at festivals this summer, it will be all but impossible to ignore.
