This is an average album.
Now that that's out of the way, let's get into the nitty gritty. The Rifles'
Great Escape begins with a very echoey, ambient sound of feedback with a guitar somewhere off in the background playing a simple little melody. Then the first track, "Science in Violence" really kicks off with aggressive playing bolstered by backing meditative oms. It's a curious trick that hypnotizes you into listening to the track all the way through and headbobbing along with the band's vainglorious declaration that "The world is our and ours alone!"
This one song serves as a microcosm of the entire album. With a sound that falls squarely between the post-punk atmosphere of Joy Division and bombastic energy of The Clash, each and every track plays out the same way with catchy little hooks and reasonably high intensity and lines that aren't really about anything in particular. It seems a swell trip at first, and I'm sure these guys are great to hear live down at the local pub (and maybe even a proper concert with the volume cranked up to eleven), but they can't help but sound a bit bland on this studio release—a plague that's unfortunately run a savage course through nearly every post-punk revival band at one point or another. The London quartet does their very best to vary their dynamics and rhythms and song structures, and they employ a million other little tricks to try and keep things interesting, but the effect is lost amidst the sea of homogeneous tone, polished production, and repetitive technique.
Granted, there are some bright spots. The guitar riff in "Winter Calls" is delightfully light-hearted in comparison to those of its neighbors. Apparent closer "For the Meantime" is greatly stripped-down, a soft and melodious tune with a small string section and hauntingly poignant lyrics that belie both the band's optimism and its humanism:
And we might find, in our lifetime
When the lights go out, that the tears fill up in our eyes
But it's only for the meantime
And before too long I will be right there at your side.
And just when you think The Rifles have pulled a fast one on you with a track that's actually pretty good, they come at you with the bonus track "Lazy Bones" that's raw and fuzzy and more akin to Oasis in their early days—which would be an apt homage, given that the band only formed after co-founders Joel and Lucas attended one of Oasis' Knebworth gigs in the 90s. Joel Stoker even warps his voice into a nasty, nasally Liam-esque snarl, and for once their energy is well-placed on a track that can handle it. Holy smokes, Britpop lives! At least for a secret 2:52 at the end of a mediocre album, but there it is.
Barring the final two cherries on top, this is largely just plain vanilla post-punk. Sometimes that's all you really want to hear in an album, and it does make for stellar background music. But sometimes you just don't want the calories.
