10 Best Rock Albums Of 2021 (So Far)
3. Death By Rock And Roll - The Pretty Reckless
A lot of the riff rock of the past few years has tended to die out...and for good reason. Although the era of Zeppelin and Sabbath may have sounded great in the '70s, there's only so many times that you can pull out the fuzz pedals and still sound authentic. Even though the sounds of this music usually sound stale, Taylor Momsen is actually pulling off the old school rock and roll much more effectively on Death By Rock and Roll.
By surrounding herself with some of the best players in the game like Tom Morello, songs like 25 and And So It Went are a lot more gritty than you might expect, complete with shifting time signatures that feel like they're right on the verge of chaos when they finally get going. It's not like Taylor can't pull it off either. Compared to the usual female rock singers, the tone of her voice is starting to fit somewhere between Joan Jett and Ann Wilson, always having the capacity for either raspy vocals or amazing screams.
That's before you even get to the song with Matt Cameron and Kim Thayil, which genuinely sounds like a long lost Soundgarden cut that we never got to hear. Despite being a little too on brand with the title, this is the kind of unapologetic rock and roll that so many bands need to implement more often.