The now-defunct NONE THE LESS may no longer be on the scene but the Watford quintet is making its best stab at not being forgotten anytime soon. ‘Time, The Healer’, the band’s first album proper, is a ripped number that goes a long way to validating those early days while hinting at what would have been an optimistic future.
Opening track, ‘Concrete Souls’, provides instant impact. A noticeably slick finish gleams through a much more direct and mature musical approach. Gone is the guttural second vocal approach to 2007’s ‘Keep Your Hands To Yourself’, as are the sometimes muddled song structures and absent big choruses of 2009’s ‘The Way To Save Ourselves’. This is more the swish approach of Lostprophets than the clunky humdrum of Bullet For My Valentine, a band Punktastic mentioned in a previous review. Throwaway those ‘post-hardcore’ and ‘metal ‘n’ roll’ tags, this is Rock with a capital R.
Where the album stands out is in its ‘big’ numbers. ‘Bitter Taste’ and ‘Hurricanes’ are a couple of tracks that take a fierce, no-captive approach to battering a song into your consciousness. It’s apparent that the slicker production on the album is accompanied by a shorter, sharper approach to song length, as well as improved vocals and lyrics (frontman Anthony Giannaccini has developed mightily). Having said that, the acoustic ‘Turn The Lights Off’ does struggle a little vocally, but it’s a bold number highlighted by a change in musical perspective. Then there’s closer, ‘Drive Away’, a full-on number that gets a little orchestral treatment. Big, big and bigger.
Let us not get carried away though. This is still a debut album and there are understandably a few minor snags. While this is a very good offering it’s not the most original of recordings and in fact some of the tracks might do well with a little differentiation. You can’t help but wonder if those raucous vocals of the earlier releases had been added to one or two tracks, just how much these would have been enhanced. Still, this is a huge and undeniable step up from the two previous EPs.
The plug may have been pulled on None The Less but the band’s last breath is deep and protracted. ‘Time, The Healer’ is a high-octane album that ferociously waves goodbye to a band that had found a swaggeringly impressive stride.
ALEX HAMBLETON