Album Review: Grand Theft Audio - "Pass Me The Conch"

 

Honestly, a comeback from Grand Theft Audio, one of the few nu-metal bands that your correspondent actually liked, wasn't something that I was expecting a couple of years ago but since Jay Butler and Ritch Battersby reconvened, they've been on a decent run of form with the Another Life and Ici Mon Decree singles showing a band pushing themselves forward to good effect.

Pleased to report that Pass Me The Conch continues that form from the instant the rolling riff and "Put your hands in the air!" chorus of Scrub Up. Bury The Day is a pure riot and The Gods Of Rock shows off GTA's trademark sly sense of humour with lyrics like "No-one cares about your shit song/We're just waiting for the end".

Trevor has an ominous slow building anger to it with Butler's menacing vocals before we get two former singles in Ruin Your Youth and the frenetic Ici Mon Decree. Away is a slower more thoughtful number although lyrics like "I wanna offer you redemption but I'm full of shit" show that there's still that sense of mischief lurking underneath. Bad Instinct and The Load are mid-paced efforts but still pack a punch especially the seething political anger of the latter. Which just leaves the pummelling riff of I Am The Algorithm to drive this one home.

Pass Me The Conch is a good comeback effort from Grand Theft Audio and reaffirms their status as a bit of an underrated band. While it occasionally harks back to the nu-metal era that spawned the band, Jay and Ritch are smart enough to realise that times have moved on a bit since then and it's to their credit that this album isn't hopelessly tied in to a single moment in time but draws its influences from a wider field and mixes them up well to create a solid effort with a few proper kickers in there that you can see going down well when they're on tour with fellow ex-Wildhearts Scott and CJ next month. See ya down the front for the moshpit (well, until my fortysomething knees give out after five minutes anyway...)

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

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