Restorations might not be ambitious when it comes to album titles (the last one was LP2) but they’ve got much bigger ideas when it comes to music.
They’re on SideOneDummy records and we remember the last album has being very Gas-light Anthem / Springsteen / heartland rock in sound. Workman-like, more than anything.
This new one sees them build on that sound to something much bigger, while sticking with their punk roots. So you get the blue collar rock of Gaslight Anthem combined with raw punk and a growing feel for a stadium sound.
Opener Wales has it all, massive echoey riffs, trademark heartland rock gruff vocals and a guitar sound that’s both intense and in-your-face and stadium-filling at the same time.
Separate Songs strips it back a bit, with a tight sound and drums that propel the song forward, a big, almost Coldplay guitar sound, and the next song Misprint is similar. Tiny Prayers opens with bass and some feed-back and is a less anthemic sound; we thought of Modest Mouse. An impressive feel-good rock album from a band that’s developing its own sound.