photo courtesy of BJF Media

Album Review: Juliet’s Not Dead – This World is Ours (TMR Records/Earache Digital Distribution)

My most recent full-on album recommendation for melodic hard rock fans is Juliet’s Not Dead‘s This World is Ours. Powerfully soaring vocals, aggressive guitar shredding, and heavy beats support a collection of well-written, hook-laden hard rock songs. The songs are classic hard rock-inspired but with a modern sound, mixing plenty of the soaringness found in new melodic power metal and the buzzy wall of sound typical of newer alt-metal, but steeped in a more timeless delivery style that is likely to appeal to both new metal and old metal/hard rock fans alike.

One of the modern touches in the band’s music is the aggressive drumming and bass thumping. In fact, the band uses this technique significantly on its first two tracks, “Sinner or Saint” and “Thrillseekers.” Drummer Jack Corbett and bass player Niall Whittaker deliver the supportive power that steeps the heavier songs, as well as the lighter ones, in metal street cred. Vocalist Stevie Stoker has voice that can cut through the loud music bed, all while it carries a variety of emotion in the verses and delivers the power in the choruses. Mix in the axework of Dan King, understated in places but capable of impressive shredding when solos are called for, and you have the complete hard rock/melodic metal package.

image courtesy of BJF Media

My first personal favorite on the album is the third song, “Open Fire,” in which both the guitar and drum dance around during the verses, then the power amps up leading to the chorus, and the main line, “take your aim and open fire,” actually pulls back a little from the rest of the chorus’ power. It has a really cool, impactful effect. The main hook here, though, I think is the relative brief musical pause right before the build up to the chorus, though it’s on as effective as it is because of the attention-grabbing softer-vocal effect in the chorus and the instrumental “dancing.” Regardless, it’s a lethal combo. You’ll remember this song!

Next up, “Battle Scarred” is a heavy rocker that starts off mellow, with the softer opening revealing a lyrical and musical vulnerability during the verses before the song builds up to greater power in the chorus. This is the record’s only song that seems to have an almost alt-rock soul and vibe, though it’s mainstreamed a bit by the “woa-oa-oah” harmonies. The lyric has depth that’ll connect with a lot of people: “I get lost sometimes. I’m still broke from that look in your eyes. Always stay true to my heart ’cause you left me battle scarred.” The song is accompanied by a cool music video, featuring actor Darren Morfitt (on a therapist’s couch, natch, given the lyrics), that mixes story scenes with live performance.

“Notorious” attracts me from the very beginning in part because the early-song twisting and turning, interest-maintaining guitar line strikes me as something one of my favorite pop-punk bands, Next Stop Atlanta (a band I reviewed in my blog-opening “Road Back to Music Journalism” series nearly ten years ago) might deploy in some of my favorite tracks of theirs. But, of course, that’s where the comparison ends, as the drums and vocals are much more metal-aggressive, driven as much by the heavy bass and drums as by the twisting and turning guitar line.

photo courtesy of BJF Media

Juliet’s Not Dead takes a bit of a departure on its sixth song, “Passing Ships.” On it, the guitar line is softer and the vocal style changes, reminding me a lot of the perennially underestimated David Cook (a mainstream rock favorite of mine). In fact, after hearing it on “Passing Ships,” I also notice that Cook-like tone to Stoker’s voice a bit elsewhere, at least when I listen for it. Interestingly, I never notice it if I’ve not played this album for a while until after playing this song. Some of the band’s harsher edges are absent in this song, so, while it’s still a power-rock song, it’s also probably the most likely to appeal to more mainstream pop-rock fans. In other words, if you’re trying to get a non-metal friend or family member into Juliet’s Not Dead, this is the “gateway drug.”

“Double Life,” next, is another power rock song. It has a little more edge than “Passing Ships” but is also mainstream-accessible. In a weird coincidence, this song reminds me a lot of a different singer from David Cook’s American Idol season. Particularly the way the title phrase is delivered, it always makes me think of the way Daughtry sings “it’s not over” in his hit song “It’s Not Over.” No, it doesn’t sound like “It’s Not Over,” but the song carries much of that energy, combined with healthy doses of modern heavy power-rock, of course.

“Last One Standing” is another Juliet’s Not Dead song that’ll grab you right from the beginning. It begins with a bit of energy, but as the music bed builds, the tempo begins to pick up. Still, if you pay close attention, the tempo actually seems a lot faster than it really is, an effect that might occur because the drumming isn’t as fast and frenetic as the rest of the instrumentation and vocals. In addition, the density and energy level of the music picks up during the chorus. It’s a cool total package.

“King and Queen,” the penultimate track, really is a faster-paced song, with a new-rock vocal edge and heavily-thumping, edgy instrumentation in the chorus before the instruments all join together to power through the chorus as a single unit. And guitar fans will dig the late song solo. Topically, the lyrics “we could be king and queen of the murder scene, what’s the fuss?” suggest a darker side to this song. The video suggests a Bonnie and Clyde-like couple behind the song’s story. I wonder if that’s what inspired this song, or if it’s something else; it seems like the sort of song that’d be inspired by “true crime,” new or old.

The album’s last song is an excellently-delivered power ballad, “Capsize.” This would’ve been a slow-dance favorite back when these sorts of slow songs ruled, back when we used to ignore power ballads’ uptempo guitar solo-driven bridges – which, on this particular song, is almost the song’s entire second half – and just dance right through it. And as much as the song is mostly dark, the final lyrics end gently: “You watched my capsize. I won’t watch you capsize.”

If I were to choose my three personal favorites on this disc, they’d be “Open Fire,” “Passing Ships,” and “Last One Standing.” But, like any favorite album, I dig the entire album experience, and on some days, one of the “other” songs is my favorite, depending on my mood. Anyway, if you’re an old-school rock or a modern hard rock/metal fan, if you’ve not yet heard Juliet’s Not Dead, give ’em a listen; they’ll likely become one of your new favorite bands.