{"id":3227,"date":"2017-01-24T14:00:38","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T14:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/review-wars-we-are-islands-after-all\/"},"modified":"2018-03-21T22:11:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T22:11:03","slug":"review-wars-we-are-islands-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/review-wars-we-are-islands-after-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Wars &#8211;\u00a0We Are Islands, After All"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/7d4b3b062b1c66d886dfc32b34e76459\/tumblr_oj5w4oFSO81r8no6so4_1280.jpg\" width=\"250em\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p>They\u2019ve spent the past few years playing one-off support spots for some of the best bands in Britain today, including Hacktivist, Bury Tomorrow and Creeper. But in 2017, Rugby five-piece <b>Wars<\/b> have turned in an album in <i>\u2018We Are Islands, After All\u2019<\/i> to make them essential headliners on the live circuit.<\/p>\n<p>The relative youth of the band is a driving force of the record, demonstrated through its relentless energy. Opener <i>\u2018The Art of Not Knowing\u2019<\/i> demonstrates their disbelief in half-measures, offering up mid-paced grooves designed with a packed venue of kids jumping in mind. Matt O\u2019Grady\u2019s (You Me at Six, Don Broco) production compliments these moments with crunchy rhythm guitar providing extra boosts of testosterone, which comes out in moments like the single note breakdown in the aptly named <i>\u2018Hills and Boulders\u2019<\/i> since it feels like they\u2019re shoving something dense as a mountain range into your ears.<\/p>\n<p><!-- more --><\/p>\n<p>The vocal interplay between frontman Rob Vicars and guitarist Sam Barnard plays a vital part in giving character to <i>\u2018We Are Islands, After All\u2019<\/i>. Recalling a poppier take on the vocal trade-offs in Being As an Ocean, Vicars\u2019 aggression makes him the dynamo of the band, while Barnard provides soaring choruses, with tracks like <i>\u2018Snows and Skies\u2019<\/i> and <i>\u2018Still Waters Run Deep\u2019<\/i> delivered with a heart-on-sleeve affection.<\/p>\n<p>The songs on offer on <i>\u2018We Are Islands, After All\u2019<\/i> are enjoyable enough in a live setting with enough massive hooks to guarantee a crowd reaction to mirror their own energy. In the current climate of metallic hardcore bands, it\u2019s not a game changer. But it\u2019s still entirely the product of <b>Wars\u2019<\/b> and you can tell in their full-hearted performance how important this album is to them. And when 2017 brings more headlining opportunities their way, a lot more people are going to realise that as well.<\/p>\n<p>4.5\/5<\/p>\n<p><i>\u2019We Are Islands, After All\u2019<\/i> by <b>Wars<\/b> is released on 27th January via <b>Spinefarm Records<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p><b>Wars<\/b> links: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weareallwars.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Website<\/a>|<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/weareallwars\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>|<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/weareallwars\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Words by Andy Davidson (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AndyrfDavidson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@AndyrfDavidson<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They\u2019ve spent the past few years playing one-off support spots for some of the best bands in Britain today, including Hacktivist, Bury Tomorrow and Creeper. But in 2017, Rugby five-piece Wars have turned in an album in \u2018We Are Islands, After All\u2019 to make them essential headliners on the live circuit. The relative youth of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":16067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[15033,15021,313,1371,2334],"class_list":["post-3227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-andrew-davidson","tag-andy-davidson","tag-spinefarm-records","tag-wars","tag-we-are-islands-after-all"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Review: Wars -\u00a0We Are Islands, After All - Already Heard Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"They\u2019ve spent the past few years playing one-off support spots for some of the best bands in Britain today, including Hacktivist, Bury Tomorrow and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: Wars -\u00a0We Are Islands, After All - 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