Artist:  Age Of Reason
   Title: One Small Act Of Defiance
   Label: Gravity Machinehit counter script

There aren’t many new bands out there who when the send me their latest EP or Album that I instantly think these guys have something new and awe inspiring, but Hastings based Age Of Reason have captured my imagination with their debut album ‘One Small Act Of Defiance’.

The band have been described as sounding like Queens of the Stoneage meets The Manics meets Audioslave and the like.  However, I think the band have that unique quality that is hard to find with many of the new bands of today and that’s their own sound.

One thing that is instantly noticeable when you first put on the album is the voice of frontman Andrew Shaw, who comes across as cross between Ian Astbury and Bono, a very eclectic mix I know but if you listen its definitely there.

The album itself covers a wide section of tempo and mood changes and varying musical styles, but definitely no fillers here, it's all-good stuff.

Things get underway with the ‘Public Property’, a song about the tabloid press and their invasion into the peoples private lives.  This is a great opener, a crunching mood ridden track that highlights those similarities between Shaw and Astbury.

Things continue with the enigmatic ‘Perfect You’, a real dark effort this one, mainly because it was written about the death of a friend of frontman Shaw, who died in car crash, a real powerhouse of a track.

The album just doesn’t get better with each listen it evolves, as the mood ridden tones of ‘How Do You Live’ and the heavy bass ridden beat of the excellent ‘Killing Time’ are unleashed on the listener.

Other highlights of the album have to be funk ridden heavy beat of ‘Stone Scissors Paper’, the unashamedly dark ‘Revolting Beast’, the hard edged rocker ‘Angelfire’, and the amazing ‘Crushed’.  But, track of the album for me has to be ‘Liberation’.  This really does encapsulate the whole vibe of the band for me.  It's rocky, it's moody, it's just superb.

This is one band to watch out for as they make a break for the big time in 2007.

 

Tracklisting:

1. Public Property
2. Perfect You
3. How Do You Live?
4. Killing Time
5. Angelfire 
6. Stone Scissors Paper
7. Revolting Beast 
8. Age Of Reason
9. Crushed 
10. Seven Kings
11. Liberation

                    

 

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