[avatar user=”Ross” size=”50″ align=”left” /]Imagine. No, not all the people living life in peace (though it’s a rather nice thought isn’t it?). Imagine if Halestorm were British. I’ll let that chill of excitement subside before I continue. I’m not a snob by any means saying British rock outranks our American counterparts, there’s a wealth of great bands from the States. But let’s be honest, their rock sounds different.
We’re getting to that point in the cycle when those bands tipped for greatness are now inspiring people and bands to take up arms for themselves. In recent years, it’s been the same few artists: Alter Bridge, Black Stone Cherry, Shinedown and Halesorm. And rightly so. This is where One Last Run stake their claim. Featuring bombastic guitars which wouldn’t sound out of place on Black Stone Cherry’s early outputs, Unbreakable is an incredible debut album.
With songs like “Casanova”, it’s foolish to deny the influence of these modern heavyweight influences with crunching guitars, squealing and notes bending around each other. This is the kind of rock which is completely up my alley.
Meanwhile you have tracks like “All You Need to Know” bringing a heap of melody into play as vocalist Becky Roberts’ voice rises and falls with ease in the space of a heartbeat.
And when the balls-out shredding or melodic side of the band isn’t there, they reach into ballad territory with “Run and Hide” or “Tell Me”. Regardless of the material, you can tell the band are locked in and running together like a well-oiled machine belying their short couple of years together as a unit. It’s a band quietly confident in themselves but at the same time, desperate to show the world what they have to offer.
It feels like a cliché at this point to be saying it as it’s bandied about too easily but you really could hear these songs being played in arenas with several thousands screaming back the lyrics or even just the “Whoa-oa” interludes such as on “Rise (Or Fall)” or as I’d like to call it, the song Alter Bridge never wrote. (Okay, they don’t go in for chants like that but let’s not nitpick.) Between the chugging guitars of Rob Leach and Jack Pennington and the sneering bass of Chris Smith alongside the soaring vocals, all you’d need to do is pretend Roberts is a man who sings in two of my favourite bands.
Unbreakable is one of those albums which catches you by surprise. You can hear the influences a mile away and it’s what draws you in. But it’s how the five-piece take those and mould into something of their own and by the end of the album, you’re hooked.
The band are on tour later this month and I intend on being there because if they’re half as good as a live act as they are on record, then One Last Run are a force to be reckoned with. Unbreakable is a feat which still doesn’t happen all that often: an incredible debut with a task ahead if they’re intent on surpassing it with the follow-up.
