8. Kids In Glass Houses - In Gold Blood 2011
Who? Why? I'll tell you why - This album is an absolutely cracking rock record. That's it. No message, no revolutionary affect on music, just engaging Rock songs, played by five lads from Wales. The band appeared to have been their own worst enemy in some ways. Allowing themselves, with their first two albums, to be painted into the pop-rock corner, championed mainly by early to mid teen-aged girls, that is also trying to be escaped from by the likes of You Me At Six and Deaf Havana, among others. Whether or not they meant this is irrelevant, as now they refused to do what was expected of them. Before it's release, 'In Gold Blood', claimed to be (by singer, Aled Phillips) "a concept record, a big, grown-up record. It's going to document a jourey." Although it was critically well received, with writers acknowledging the band's progression and obvious maturing and a healthy push by label, Roadrunner, it all failed to translate on a commercial level. The album seemed to shed KIGH the same amount of fans that it gained them. The outgoing ones couldn't grow with the band and the incoming ones were different, older, more appreciative of this new found, big Rock dynamic. It was a brave gamble and one that didn't pay off as well as one listen through the eleven tracks, demonstrates it should have. They now weren't boy-band-with-guitars enough for some but still had that stigma attached to their name for the more, "serious" music fan.
For those that don't care and just love great music, this album is a great reward. 'Animals' was the lead single and is a raucous call to arms, with a swaggering riff, cocky vocal delivery and full of stadium sized attitude. The addition of soulful, black female vocals just shows that the band were out for maximum delivery. Elsewhere, the addition of brass and rumbling, dirty bass lines, Slash-like guitar solos peppered throughout the songs shows the band had been looking to timeless, classic rock records for inspiration. If, for example, Queens of the Stone Age had released this, it would have been heralded as the second coming. The band still managed to be a healthy live draw, but it was on the same circuit they have been frequenting for the last couple of album cycles, when it should have been arenas. Check your pre-conceptions at the door, listen without prejudice and tell me you don't feel the same. The music industry is a nasty business and this just adds to the many injustices.