Exploding with the feisty punk rock of ‘After All’, When Summer’s Gone’s Knockout Mechanism immediately establishes itself as big, bold, and full on rockin’.
Stream the full album at Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/when-summers-gone/sets/knockout-mechanism
As an album opener, it’s a good way of getting your sound across effectively, with hints of Nirvana on the vocal and touches of Thrice and Green Day, with a screeching guitar solo that adds texture and dimension. ‘All Out War’ builds and builds in its opening bars, before settling down to a grumbling bassline that underpins the track, while ‘Threadbare’ uses a wider range of tones and textures to create a balance of light and dark that leans towards Queens Of The Stone Age in its sound. Knockout Mechanism is a confident record in terms of achieving what it appears to set out to achieve; ‘Like Ghosts’ is a growling drop tuned beast, with vocals that veer towards Lars Ulrich in places which is also evident on ’001′ and ‘Each Day’. The guitarwork is particularly enjoyable – just heavy enough without being full on death metal, and yet distorted beyond the typical tones of hardcore, and when the vocals hit the mark they match the hardness of the guitars perfectly, creating a perfect balance of chewy classic metal. ‘Pale Thoughts’ shows thoughtfulness in its construction, with the song’s rhythm pulling back and forth against itself and making for an engaging track that has a sense of intelligence to it, while closing track ‘Reborn’ is a glacial, creepy, almost ambient industrial conclusion to Knockout Mechanism.
http://www.whensummersgone.com
By Chris Marsh
