Young Guns – All Our Kings Are Dead

By Tom Aylott

If you wanted a perfect example of ‘hotly tipped’, you really need look no further than High Wycombe quintet Young Guns. Stakes are set high after the success of last year’s EP ‘Mirrors’ and delivering the goods with their debut album was always going to essential in keeping the momentum the band have been gathering over the last 18 months going.

‘All Our Kings Are Dead’ sees Young Guns refining their marriage of stadium and mid ’00s rock with soundscapes big enough to park Aerosmith’s travelcade in; and though the balls-to-the-wall approach to production historically has a less than favourable hit rate, it’s effortlessly on target here and suits the band perfectly.

To pick highlights from an album positively bursting with behemoth choruses is always a bit tricky, but past singles and ‘Weight of the World’ from the EP aside, ‘Crystal Clear’ and ‘Stitches’ are especially great at superglueing themselves to your subconscious.

Where bands not a million stylistic miles away have stumbled keeping an identity across an entire record, Young Guns have excelled. It’s great to hear an album that clocks in at over 50 minutes and feels like it’s meant to be way that way, and the amount of effort put into the flow and deliberateness of track order is something that many could and should take a capitalised note of.

The UK scene is producing some fantastic ideas and approaches to making music at the moment – Young Guns are firmly in this club and deserve every bit of praise they get. A storming debut effort, and one that I suspect and hope will only aid the band’s escalation upwards over the rest of the year and beyond.

Three more album reviews for you

Fortune Teller – ‘PREMONITIONS’

While She Sleeps - 'SELF HELL'

USA Nails – ‘FEEL WORSE’