ALBUM REVIEW: The Drowns – Harsh Reality (Pirates Press Records).
Seattle street-punks The Drowns are back with their fourth studio album, and it’s fair to say it finds them right at the top of their game.
They’ve shed a member since their last record, last year’s Live At Rebellion (reviewed here), which means they’re back to the original three-piece who formed in 2017.
Aaron ‘Rev’ Peters (guitar & vocals), Andy Wylie (bass & vocals) and Jake Margolis (drums) play a punked-up street rock ‘n’ roll with plenty of hooks and heart, which has made them firm favourites at Blackpool’s Rebellion Festival since they first played in 2019.
It’s easy to see why with just one listen of their latest offering, 13 slices of heart-on-the-sleeve punk rock played with passion, anger, and a big dollop of pop sensibility.
Unlike most other groups they have two lead vocalists, very different in style. Rev’s guttural growl is balanced nicely by Andy’s more melodic tones, and here the songs are sequenced with one taking lead then the other. The uneven number of songs means Rev sings lead on seven, and Andy on six.
They come hurtling out of the traps with Always A Bastard, which is The Drowns as angry as I’ve ever heard them. You can hear the venom in Rev’s voice as he sings: “You were always a bastard, and you’ll die that way, pretty soon now.” Sounds like someone really pissed him off!
Have A Heart, the second single from the album, changes the tone somewhat, and the title might suggest a love song, but listen to the lyrics and it’s a takedown of how the political system makes wealthy people richer, while being stacked against the poor.
Lead single Relentless is foot-to-the-floor punk rock, and could easily be about The Drowns’ tireless live schedule or the pace of their live shows. However, it’s about the crushing weight of capitalism on everyday folks’ lives, and the impact it has on their mental health. Most people will be able to identify as Rev sings “I wish life would just give it a rest.”
Hellish Tattoo is driven along by Jake’s propulsive drumming, which is a feature of the whole album, while Let’s Start A Cult sees the boys pass a scathing verdict on organised religion, and the chorus “make them slaves to belief” is one which I can’t wait to sing back at them live.
Strangled Voices is The Drowns taking a baseball bat to the myth that equality exists in Trump’s version of the land of the free “they will look you in the eye while they stab you in the back”, while Burn The Page, one of the album’s standout songs, is a reminder that when you hire a clown, the whole country ends up resembling a circus.
3rd & Pike, the last pre-release single, features Matt Hensley from Flogging Molly and PPR labelmates A-100s on accordion. It’s a tongue-in-cheek tale about the after-effects of a particularly wasted night out. You can almost taste the rising nausea as Rev sings: “How could you do this to me, with my head in my lap and I’m clutching my knees/I can’t trust you again, it’s a bad, bad morning.”
Vengeance, featuring additional guitar by Zach Blair (Rise Against, Only Crime, GWAR), is an angry tale of revenge, while Death Of The Optimist is a treatise on how today’s world can crush even the most positive people among us.
The album ends with what sounds like a trio of love songs, Tried To Love Ya, the catchy-as-hell Tender Hooks and No Better, and it’s another cracking collection from this most likable of bands. Don’t miss The Drowns as they play a handful of UK dates this autumn. 9/10.
