Sound Of Guns - What Came From Fire

From little sparks come big flames

Sound Of Guns are being hailed the next big thing in rock n roll by many including one Zane Lowe who has backed the band for quite some time, giving them the much coveted “hottest record in the world”. They now arrive fresh from a spate of tour dates across the UK with their debut album What Came From Fire. The album begins in an interesting way, with a 40 second track simply entitled Intro. I’m not really sure what its purpose is as I don’t really find it to be an introduction to what follows. It isn't that it’s not pleasant to listen to, but with no outro at the end that brings it back to the start, it sadly feels a little redundant and the majority of my subsequent listens were from track two, which is current single Architects. This is a track that for me is a real introduction to the band and their album.

What of the remainder then? Well in all honesty I do find some of the tracks a little tried and tested once we’ve got past the first few tracks, which incidentally have all been singles. But there is nothing wrong to sticking to what you really do well and this is a great album if you want something loud and with a bit of a kick. There doesn’t feel like there’s much angst at times and I’m pretty sure that it is probably the production to blame for that. One track makes me feel quite uncomfortable when I listen to the beginning of it and that is Collisions. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is but it’s in the music. Perhaps it’s some dissonant chords, but by the time the chorus busts in it has won me back and I once again can imagine huge crowds waving their arms in the air and singing back to the band. There really is such scope for this band to have a fantastic live career with many of these songs, I really believe they will come to life when played, and I hope I’ll be able to find out for myself soon enough.

Sound Of Guns, like many bands whose album is predominantly full of rock n roll anthems, are also keen to show that they do have more than one string to their bow. To do this they end the album with a beautiful track called It Starts With An End. It puts forward some lovely vocals and deep low harmonies give the track a depth that makes it feel quite intimate and different to many who might take their backing vocal harmonies higher. This track has great crescendos from the percussion that brings a real sense of drama to what might have just been another slow rock song. If it's something a little more fast paced and heavy that you want then perhaps you might want to skip back a few tracks and listen to Lightspeed again. I would say that this is arguably one of the heavier tracks the album has to offer. This is a song that positively gallops all over the place, just listen to those drums that hit at about one minute in. What follows this track is also pretty heavy too and perhaps it is this that makes It Starts With An End feel like it stands out so gloriously.

What is here on this debut album is a nicely polished performance made from hard work and talent; with musicians who clearly have a passion as well as a high standard of ability, with vocals that are fueled by emotion and that same passion. A debut album such as this, however, requires more than passion, emotion and polished performances. It requires a sill for song writing that is so often lacking in much of the rock music that I hear. Sound Of Guns haven’t pushed any boundaries within their genre but what they have done is equally as good, equally as interesting and as relevant as any of their contemporaries.

14/06/2010 - Elena