It feels like a lot of people have been putting the boot in on Young Guns recently. Certainly ‘Ones & Zeroes’ from last year was a misstep similar to some of the ones we have seen in American politics recently, and though latest album, ‘Echoes’, is better but not by much (which we will get to) it feels hard to hate on them. After all they’re just doing what they know and whilst it isn’t very inspiring, telling them to fuck off seems a bit harsh.
On the other hand, ‘Echoes’ isn’t particularly good. There’s a bit less of the pop-rock sensibilities than we heard on ‘Ones & Zeroes’, and though ‘Echoes’ does feel like a revisiting of their earlier material in terms of bringing the rock back, it feels more like that they’ve just put on a leather jacket rather than actually spent time listen to a lot of quality rock music for inspiration.
The production doesn’t help either. The bits that are supposed to hit hard hit like someone burping at you from a mile away and in songs like ‘Echoes’ and ‘Paranoid’, which otherwise would have been quite good songs, the lack of drive or weight to the production means they fall far short of what they could have been. The same is true of the album as a whole.
All of the songs are not up to scratch, even by Young Guns standard; the riffs are not terrible (save for the production) but the synth bits are pretty woeful and used far more than they should be if Young Guns are trying to steer away from the pop stuff; the lyrics are devoid of pretty much anything that you could call deep or meaningful or resonant, and mostly seem to revolve around cliches and metaphors so tired and thin you would be excused for mistaking them for a Travelodge carpet.
‘Echoes’ is an album that reminds you of a cake that someone has nicked the topping off of. You can still eat the sponge if you like, but it’s not going to be that great, it might do a little bit for you but by no means is it going to be as satisfying as the cake could have been.
ANDY LEDDINGTON