{"id":78418,"date":"2019-04-25T19:30:16","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T18:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/?p=78418"},"modified":"2023-04-07T14:22:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T13:22:55","slug":"review-the-damned-things-high-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/review-the-damned-things-high-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Damned Things &#8211; High Crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-78436 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/The-Damned-Things-High-Crimes-Artwork-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>2010 to a lot of us probably doesn&#8217;t feel that long ago. Nine years ago however, Anthrax&#8217;s Scott Ian, Keith Buckley (Every Time I Die), Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley of Fall Out Boy and Rob Caiggiano (now replaced by Dan Andriano of Alkaline Trio) were the most unlikely group of musicians to form a hard rock band together.<\/p>\n<p>With a handful of festival dates in the summer of that year, it seemed that <strong>The Damned Things<\/strong> was a carefree outlet that never lived up to its potential. They still maintained a cult following however, and here we are now.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest difference on &#8216;<em>High Crimes&#8217; <\/em>compared to\u00a02010&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Ironiclast\u00a0<\/em>isn&#8217;t so much each member&#8217;s role in the supergroup, but rather an emphasis on experimentation, not simply adding bits that sound like their day jobs to form a mish-mash of ideas. Not all of them work of course. The obnoxious vocal sample on <em>&#8216;Something Good&#8217;\u00a0<\/em>and the peppy synth accompaniment on <em>&#8216;Storm Charmer&#8217;\u00a0<\/em>become more of a hindrance to their formula, rather than a meaningful musical expansion.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"THE DAMNED THINGS - Cells (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZKdULf6iCng?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Luckily, opener &#8216;<em>Cells&#8217; <\/em>sees them venture drastically away from the Thin Lizzy\/Led Zeppelin influences on their debut record and into something more captivating. It has all the sleazy, wild guitar licks you&#8217;d want from the spirit of rock and roll, minus the cringy misogynistic overtones, or egocentric bullshit your dad still listens to.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, Keith Buckley has stated he didn&#8217;t want to write cliche lyrics anymore. While its arguable there aren&#8217;t any memorable one liners, instead his vocals ornament the driving instrumentals with the occasional scratchy yelp, breaking the melodic choruses up. The most noticeable example being on the seductive <em>&#8216;Carry A Brick&#8217;.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When they are giving their best output however, <strong>The Damned Things<\/strong> aren&#8217;t trying to be profound. <em>&#8216;Let Me Be Your Girl&#8217;<\/em> and <em>&#8216;Young Hearts&#8217;, <\/em>in particular, are fast-paced and gritty, without a doubt throwing us back to a time when Hurley and Trohman were writing far more aggressive songs.<\/p>\n<p>At face value<em>, &#8216;High Crimes&#8217;<\/em> is a well-rounded return for the mismatched supergroup.<\/p>\n<p>3\/5<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8216;High Crimes&#8217;<\/em> by <strong>The Damned Things <\/strong>is released on 26th April on\u00a0<strong>Nuclear Blast<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Damned Things<\/strong>\u00a0links: <a href=\"https:\/\/thedamnedthings.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Website<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thedamnedthings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> |\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thedamnedthings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a> |\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/thedamnedthings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Words by Ashwin Bhandari (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GIVEUPOX17\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@GIVEUPOX17)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;&#8216;High Crimes&#8217; has all the sleazy, wild guitar licks you&#8217;d want from the spirit of rock and roll\u2026 a well-rounded return&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":78436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[5879,15315,16797,3860,16796],"class_list":["post-78418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-reviews","tag-ashwin-bhandari","tag-high-crimes","tag-nuclear-blast","tag-the-damned-things"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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