Album Review: Excuses Excuses - Listen Up

After exploding on to the music scene with three energetic singles that took the music world by storm. Excuses Excuses have finally unleashed their debut album to the world in a joyous expression of loud and proud guitar led music keeping true to their live shows.

Lead vocalist Kyle Wilton states:

“I was always very attracted to high energy music, and that started with Sabbath, but all of our songs really mean something very specific, and although we want people to interpret them however it makes sense to them, you’ve got to communicate those emotions in a way that people are going to feel.”

An explosive start as the band state their claim to their riotous sounds. In your face vocals and rip roaring guitars are the name of the game and first track ‘Say’ is chock full of riff-tastic guitar playing. The ebb and flow of the track is the band’s secret weapon. The way they seamlessly change from verse to chorus and verse again is as addicitive as the riffs. A nod to drummer Jason Nicoll who puts in a shift on each track to drive the changes.

The title track ‘Listen up!’ is an upbeat glorious track that deploys the quiet verse loud chorus formula to great results. A combination of positive lyrics and hand claps are sometimes all we need in life. They have no way of sounding this big for a trio.

The band know how to write songs with soaring choruses. ‘Feeling Sorry’ is all chunky rhythms and tasty guitar work. Which ‘Wasted Alone’ takes further with a glorious chorus and sweet guitar solo. ‘Hardship To Sail’ shows off the band’s melodic playing and the vocalists melodic phrasing especially on the chorus. The whole album benefits from the Wilton’s singing style and the way the drummer shakes things up nicely with a hypnotic drum beat on the build up to the chorus.

‘My Nicotine’ is a rousing punk love song, in disguise as an ode to cigarettes, which is a pounding future classic with a rising middle 8 which is close to punk perfection. Using distorted fat chords that transmit so much power. Power that the band throw into ‘Break Down The Silence’. With the pedal firmly down it rages and screams from the opening drum beat.

The final track ‘Far From Perfect’ is an epic way to close the album. A throbbing track of palm muted chords and pounding drums and a sound I still can’t believe comes from a trio even after 9 tracks of raging rock. Wilton treats us to some more tasty guitar work closing a fantastic album on a high.

The band have created foot to the floor punk rock that rejuvenates the genre with their fresh take. Wilton does a cracking job taking care of the singing and guitar duties and can only be this good because of the excellent backing by bassist Trevor Bowman and drummer Jason Nicoll. It’s what they do with their limited resources. Shaking things up by adding in little frills from the drummer and melodic playing that sets the album alight. The bands quality flows out the speakers and you can hear the joy in every drum beat and note.

Check out the bands track