Review Summary: An absolutely stunning album from rock's new superstars.
Rock radio has a tendency to focus primarily on big names and push promising new acts aside. Looking at Billboard’s Mainstream Rock airplay charts, Three Days Grace, Seether, Godsmack, Avenged Sevenfold and Theory of a Deadman – the same bands that have dominated rock’s upper echelon of popularity for the past decade, are still on top. Meanwhile, the bottom houses songs by Mastodon, Alter Bridge, Kyng and Avatar that never get the success they deserve, being shoved aside for the stale rehashes that their so-called "superiors" keep sending out. Yet amongst the so-called “dinosaurs” are a strange group of new faces that normally don’t prop up around these parts of popularity. Royal Blood, Nothing More and Starset have each already ascended to the Top 10 with their début singles, joining the ranks of such cash-grabbing names. Out of all three newbies, Nothing More left the best impression with their breathtaking self-titled fourth album, which, if anything, proves that they are a band that deserves to remain as huge as the decade-old bands listed above.
Lead single “This is the Time (Ballast)” was for most people the first glimpse of Nothing More that they heard. The transition from opening interlude “Ocean Floor” is absolutely flawless, fading in perfectly that it’s hard to realize that they’re two separate tracks. Backed by an extremely raucous drumming performance and breathtaking high-register vocal work from frontman Jonny Hawkins, the song has peaked at #4 (and is still rising), and deserves every ounce of its success. For all it’s worth, “This is the Time (Ballast)” isn’t even one of the best songs on
Nothing More – the band’s blend of heavy, kick-ass instrumentation and melodic, radio-friendly choruses works in their favor almost all of the time. “First Punch” has Hawkins screaming “Right between the eyes!” at the top of his lungs five seconds before crooning “I’m wrong but it feels right, and it’s about damn time” in an insanely catchy chorus, while “The Matthew Effect” features an aggressive (for radio rock, at least) breakdown that shows the flawless use of vocal effects and him also reaching for that elusive high note (spoiler alert: he hits it). Elsewhere in the album, “Here’s to the Heartache” and “I’ll Be OK” show off the band’s slower side, and they’re filled with just as much emotion as their harder counterpart. The pain in Hawkins’ voice truly resonates through listeners as he laments all the mistakes he made that caused his relationship to turn sour.
The integration of the album’s ambient fillers also mostly works in their favor – the aforementioned “Ocean Floor” is a flawless segue into “This is the Time (Ballast)”, while the acoustic strumming that “Gyre” wraps itself around impeccably changes the mood from the radio-ready “First Punch” to the hard-hitting “The Matthew Effect” (and it’s even filled with samples from the latter). While the electronic-influenced “Surface Flames” would have worked better had it not been sandwiched around
Nothing More’s worst tracks, the most mind-boggling filler on the album is most definitely the ten-minute closer “Pyre”. The band had the chance to end on a high note with the epic, progressive “God Went North”, but instead they made the last impression nothing but static and noise. It’s like they were trying to emulate Tool by finishing with pointless soundscapes, because all “Pyre” is the sound of the wind blowing, a man ranting about religion and the inner mind and the buzzing static.
With seventeen songs that run for a total of 68 minutes,
Nothing More rarely feels like a tedious listen… until the end. While the first ten tracks are mostly flawless pieces of alternative rock, the album falters the most in its final act. Most of the time, it’s not even the fact that they’re dull and lifeless than the fact that they’re cringeworthingly horrendous. Although “Friendly Fire”’s yelping of “Friendly! Fire! Honest! Liar!” in its chorus may seem rather offputting, that’s nothing compared to the sophomoric lyrics and laughably bad verse vocals in “Sex & Lies”. While other lowlights are simply among the album’s worst because of how bland and unmemorable they are, certain others are just unbearable, and they all manage to be placed right next to each other in the tracklist.
Lyrically, Nothing More can be both eloquently breathtaking and hilariously awful. On the media-baiting “Mr. MTV”, Hawkins lists off a number of examples of how technology is taking over, including his iLife, iWorld, iGirl, iPlan (and iSex, I suppose, if the label let him say it, although the line “get my drugs and sex, more sex, want sex, need sex” already satisfies that purpose), while hilarious one-liners about “sucking tit”, “getting sick when I think of you spreading your legs”, “hearing it from the whore horse’s mouth” and how “God hates fags and communism”. At other times the lyrics recycle clichés, pander to the least common denominator and come off as rather basic. On the other hand, impressive lines like “If I were God just for a day, I would be guilty of letting the whole world slip away” and “The petals they weep, they're uprooted like me, cut from the cord of their mother who gave me everything” convey the sadness and regret that Hawkins is feeling.
Despite its flaws,
Nothing More is still an excellent alternative rock record filled with plenty of energy and emotion from a band who is just now tasting their first glimpse of mainstream success. Jonny Watkins is one hell of a frontman, leading his crew with his vivacious spirit and one talented set of pipes. Although nothing innovative, Nothing More’s instrumental section is still pretty notable, with pounding riffs that are always exact and its completementary drum section. Even with such talented rhythm keepers, the band also find a way to integrate infectious, catchy hooks into their hard-hitting rock. Although
Nothing More does falter quite a bit during the final stretch, there’s still an absolutely breathtaking first half plus a highly emotional, progressive epic ‘closer’ in “God Went North”. Among all the new bands that are finding mainstream success, Nothing More stand out as one of the best with an extremely gifted set of musicians, and there would be virtually nothing wrong with having them become rock radio staples over the next few years.
