Review Summary: Like an average rock radio station
Few bands in music today are more reviled than
Asking Alexandria. Bursting onto the scene as early as 2007, the reception they've received from anyone who isn't a scene kid has largely been seething hatred that would lead you to believe that Danny Worsnop and company went out and slaughtered a bunch of kittens just for the hell of it. To get the obvious out of the way, Asking Alexandria are by no means some misunderstood creative geniuses that society will look back on in 25 years as one of the greatest bands of all time, but the truth is that the hate their music got was quite frankly ridiculous, as it was largely run of the mill scene-core.
Starting with their self-titled, the band began shifting to a more pop-laden hard rock sound, and this brings us to their latest effort
Like a House on Fire, which is nothing more than Asking Alexandria shifting completely away from their scene roots and settling in as a by the numbers poppy hard rock band. Despite pulling the same old stops for an Asking Alexandria album, however,
Like a House on Fire does have it's pros: Danny Worsnop's vocals are the best they've been since
From Death to Destiny, and the album itself is the most consistent they've been since
Reckless and Relentless, with the past three albums being marred by damn near every issue in the book, from Danny losing his passion to getting used to Denis Stoff to getting used to Danny once again; now that they're out of their bizarre six-year mid-life crisis, they've finally been able to put all their focus on a cohesive album. Producer Matt Good did a semi-decent job in some areas this time around, providing a bit of an atmospheric layer in the background that's odd but somewhat enjoyable.
Some of the songs are actually some of the strongest this band has put out: "Antisocialist" is an extremely catchy guilty pleasure if nothing else, "I Don't Need You" sees Grace Grundy provide some really good guest vocals that interplay shockingly well with Worsnop, "All Due Respect" is a fairly decent power ballad, while "The Violence" would make a hell of a wrestling show theme song. Obviously, however,
Like a House on Fire has its faults. The mastering is complete and utter dogs**t (you can actually hear clipping on "Antisocialist" and "The Violence" with a
freaking iPhone speaker), and the lyrics are nothing more than juvenile teenage diary shenanigans:
"Please stay away from me
You keep on talking with nothing to say
I don't wanna hear about your life
You make me wanna eat a bullet
It's on my forehead
Four letters, off
And go forth and spread the word
I don't wanna know you
Please stay away from me
'Cause I don't f**king like you"
-"Antisocialist"
When you look from a truly objective standpoint,
Like a House on Fire certainly isn't awful, nor is it great. Nothing on it is offensively bad, nor is it a groundbreaking, revolutionary record (or change of sound). If you're into the standard radio heavy/poppy rock sound, you might find a moment or two to enjoy here, but if you're not a fan of generic modern rock, you might as well just forget this album exists and move on.
