Anyone who knows their music will have spotted the wonderful Springsteen reference that was last year’s album title, Last Chance Power Drive. And while I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Elephants and Stars are plowing a similar musical furrow as The Boss, there is certainly something in the scale of their music, in its anthemic nature, in the way it mythologizes small-town life, in its restless spirit and that desire to see what is over the next hill.
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But Beld Out at the Scene is nothing if not its own sonic beast, a heady blend of Foo Fighters muscle and early Bon Jovi accessibility; the latter not the coolest of musical touchstones, perhaps, but in this song, at least, something of that ilk and era resonates through.
It is also a perfect blend of now and then, a nod to the classic rock past while reimagining it for the present day. It doesn’t particularly shake things up; thankfully, Elephants and Stars are astute enough to know that rock music doesn’t need shaking up, not much anyway, and that it probably found its perfect form many years ago. No, Bled Out at the Scene takes the existing format, polishes it, re-imagines it, retools and represents it, and uses the end result to fashion a great song.
Definitely a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But neither should you be afraid to give things a bit of a makeover and inject a spring into the genre’s step. Do that, and you might end up with a song as good as Bled Out at the Scene or a band as great as Elephants and Stars.
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