An outstanding new album release from Never Elected breeds a classic almost late 90s alternative rock soundscape and they managed to pull this aesthetic off so perfectly that you feel like this is a band you've been missing out on for years now.
The Turbulent album is absolutely thriving, and this is because it utilizes such great guitar tones and riffs that are a little bit outside the box and can get really heavy but still not reach into the full-on metal soundscape. Sometimes you get trudging heaviness that is still alternative rock because it's done with a little bit of a looser approach almost like Alice In Chains for example.
The album packs a massive set of punches and surprises around the corners as well and everything about it has this wild and electric energy almost like some of the songs were maybe even recorded live on the floor to an extent.
It feels like everyone is feeding off of each other's energies right there in the moment when you listen to these songs and that's what gives that live performance undertone.
Even if I'm wrong about the whole live on the floor thing, listening to the record definitely makes you want to go see these guys play live simply because if that kind of energy is captured on record, then seeing them live must be amazing.
This is one of those bands that everyone puts in 100% with. Each element of the band and the songs push the next. So, the guitars have this great distortion and a great riff, and they're played with emphasis on certain notes, the drumming does the same. Then the vocals in the bass do. Everyone drives each other and because of that all the instruments and vocals end up complimenting each other and letting everything just get pushed to where the song needed to be.
The vocalist is outstanding and really feeds into that same energy and gives it off as well. You get a lot of hooks on the guitar but also a lot of hooks vocally that end up swimming around in your head for hours or sometimes days after the songs have ended.
The only way to really satiate that is to go and listen to them again and that is pretty smart songwriting although I can tell you these guys just pull it off naturally.
I grew up in a certain time. A time when you would go and buy the album of a band because you heard a track play on the radio. Or maybe you read about them in a magazine and then went to download it on LimeWire or Napster.
These were different times, but it was a beautiful time for rock and alternative rock was at its highest point, so songs were coming out that were amazingly impactful, and they had this crazy drive but a unique approach.
When you went out and bought that album, you went home, and you heard other songs from the record that you hadn't heard yet and this became an experience.
It's definitely been a while since I've felt that, and this record gave me that same feeling.
It was nostalgic for me, and it felt amazing because these guys not only pulled off the aesthetic and the sound perfectly, but they also did a whole album.
I understand that we live in a single-based society and people don't have the same attention spans as they used to, I suppose. However, real bands are putting out albums.
And it was refreshing to go through this whole thing.
This is one of those records that you should absolutely listen to in full, from beginning to end.
Listening to one or two tracks will give you a little bit of a gist of all you can expect but it will not give you the full spectrum of what the actual album has to offer.
So, if you are a fan of classic alternative rock either underground or mainstream, this album is 100% for you because they do it with heart, vivaciousness, character, and personality, and every aspect of it is really now because the bands that influence them to become a band led them to this point.
To me, this is like a love letter to those bands.
Either way, dive into this one as soon as you can, and you certainly will not be disappointed.
Remember where you heard it first.
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