Review Summary: Smart Casual is definitely the album for the summer with its incredibly catchy pop songs that will stick to your mind like a pretty girl (or boy's) face.
So,
Kids In Glass Houses have finally released their first album, after what seem like an awful long time considering how long this band have been the darling of Kerrang! and the hype they have generated.
Smart Casual comes to us courtesy of Roadrunner Records, yep that Roadrunner, the ones that also have Slipknot and DragonForce amongst their list of artists and I won't lie that I wasn't surprised about their inclusion in that list.
Anyway onto the review, as a fan of
Kids In Glass Houses for a while I've been eagerly anticipating this album for a while now and I'll be honest, it was worth the wait. I tell you now this band can make a good fast-paced pop song with the noteworthy tunes being
Fisticuffs, Good Boys Gone Rad and the single
Give Me What I Want alternately known as Me, Me, Me. A lot of people I have spoken to expressed doubt as to whether the energy from these songs can be transferred over on stage but having seen them live recently they would give many a band a run for their money live. They also create great music for relaxing too as well with stellar creations such as
Saturday and
Dance All Night proving that this band aren't just a one-trick pony.
At this point you'd be forgiven for thinking that this album is completely flawless, well you'd be wrong.
Lovely Bones, seriously where should I start? it's just terrible, terrible, terrible, the song seems to meander on and on and on without really getting anywhere . Then we have the frankly pointless filler
Shameless but thankfully this trend isn't repeated until the closer
Church Tongue which is equally as useless as the other two. It seems that
Kids In Glass Houses seem to get stuck in a rut when they try to incorporate both fast paced choruses and slow verses and end up going nowhere with them. Lead Singer Aled Philips and guitarists Joel Philips and Iain Mahanty combine well to mesh together interesting riffs with excellent lyrics (Lovely Bones aside). The drumming by Mr. Phil Jenkins is nothing especially impressive but it is tight and keeps the faster songs undeniably brilliant, but the bass played by Andrew Shay tends to fade into the background as is so prevailant in this kind of music, oh well I guess you don't know what you've got until its gone and songs would be nowhere without bass.
Smart Casual has several of the band's earlier successes
Easy Tiger, Raise Hell and overall tend to continue on their path of creating great catchy pop songs that tease your mind for days on end until you stick
Smart Casual back on to get that fix you've been craving. Hopefully
Kids In Glass Houses can continue to make great pop songs and for now at least with the summer pretty much upon us this will most definitely be the feel good album of the summer as we wait for the new Underoath album in september. ;)
Recommended tracks :- Fisticuffs, Give Me What I Want, Good Boys Gone Rad, Dance All Night
