South Wales has delivered us many great things in music over the years, with everyone from Funeral for a Friend to Kids In Glass Houses, Save Your Breath and half the Punktastic team all calling it their home. Latest influential export though, comes in the form of Caesars Rome who return to the scene with their sophomore album ‘Believers’ and it’s ready to knock your socks off.
Opener ‘Braille’ is an emotive, powerful launch into the album. A catchy, distorted riff carries us throughout and into a simple, yet punchy chorus that sees Jonathon Hopkins’ vocals soar above the music. This then leads into ‘Stay Gold’, which flows on a similar wavelength. The pain in Hopkins’ voice that little more prominent, which leaves us reminiscing back to a 2005 Saosin/Senses Fail era, just without all the black hair and screaming.
Things take a turn with ‘Old World Continents’ as guitars screech and everything gets that bit meatier, heavier and roaring out with a bit more bite and angst. ‘Earth From Space’ and ‘Haunt’ certainly continue the album through its heaviest stages; pummelling bass and drums creating an all-round epic feel to the tracks. Caesars Rome have taken on-board a whole array of influences when writing this record. You can hear parts of Biffy Clyro in the punchy guitar chords, hints of Deftones in tracks such as ‘Heavy Heart’ and ‘Things We Lost In The Fire’ all whilst the sincerity in Hopkins’ words is comparable to that of The Dangerous Summer.
There’s no doubt that ‘Believers’ is a powerful, well thought out, well crafted piece of music. However with many of the tracks seeing above five minutes, sometimes it’s a little too easy to switch off mid-song and the album as a whole feels like it has been slightly dragged out. With a few of the tracks also having a lot of similarities, it begs the question as to whether Caesars Rome have just tried to stuff in as much of their music as possible, leaving it feeling a little over-done and full. There’s not a strong desire to hear anything more, so perhaps some of the album could have been saved for a future release?
That aside, the raw passion that just bursts out of each of the songs is enough to make this record see Caesars Rome go on to bigger things, break out of the Welsh border and bring some of that anthemic, distorted sound to fans far and wide.
TAMSYN WILCE