When I was a kid in the ’80s, American arena rock meant Bon Jovi or Aerosmith. By and large, it was feel-good and anthemic.
These days, you could argue that spirit lives on—in the first song of “What Remains”.
“The Bullet That Missed” has it all: a massive riff, a bigger chorus that soars, and anger by the boatload. Not a hair out of place.
It’s what Pop Evil have been doing for years, and they’re superb at it.
This eighth album in 20 years has even more about it than usual. There’s a new drummer, Blake Allison, and a production team featuring some of the finest names in modern rock.
But most importantly, Leigh Kakaty—always a force of nature—has dug deep this time.
The results are thrilling. And heavy. “…..Deathwalk” could start a mosh pit in a morgue, with pleasingly sparse industrial passages thrown in.
That’s a thread throughout. The title track is a sensational beatdown, delivered with a velvet boxing glove, and “Wishful Thinking” takes you from an abyss to an epiphany: “One day I realised that you’ll never change,” Kakaty sings, like he’s trying to remind himself.
Trimmed to 10 tracks and just over half an hour, the record sounds sonically brilliant. But there’s a hopelessness to “Side Effect”, which might well be about the same person as “Wishful Thinking”. There’s real pain here.
“Criminal” is three minutes of pure fury, and the album—maybe even this genre—doesn’t get better than “Enough Is Enough”.
Nick Fuelling is in rare form on lead guitar—these are riffs thick enough to hang your winter coat on—but he’s never better than on the sheer energy of “Zero To None”.
Things take a strange, menacing turn on “Knife For The Butcher”—King 810 might be glancing over, enviously—and if “Overkill” leans towards ballad territory, it’s still relentlessly heavy, both musically and lyrically.
There’s catharsis in all of this, surely. When Kakaty sings “I can see rock bottom,” you believe him.
Happy people rarely make great records. “What Remains” is proof—and a career high.
Rating: 8/10
