Whilst the name would suggest the end of something, Glorious Sunset sounds like anything but. It could be argued that a band that have had 16 years out of the game may have lost what made them great in the first place but instead the extended hiatus has, if anything, recharged and reinvigorated them.
This is Hundred Reasons with all the vim, piss, vinegar and heart that they had before.
The youthful exuberance of Ideas Above Our Station may be in the past but all the key ingredients are still present. Mainly, Colin Doran’s vocal chord-shredding delivery, ear-splitting guitar and thunderous rhythm section.
Chuck in the sharp as a tack production that allows each sinew strained to be driven through your ear drum means this is a record that doesn’t so much makes demands of your attention but smash you repeatedly over the head until you submit.
It’s been a long time since Hundred Reasons were on the stage in the Tumbledown Dick round the corner from me. Now they’d either have to stand on the counter at McDonald’s or do it Apple Building style on the roof (NB mention to management for album launch stunt).
One thing that was never missing from a Hundred Reasons’ song was a melody and great hook that embedded itself in your psyche, like all great pop songs, so you remember every inflection 20 odd years later. This record has the potential to do the same.
Kicking off with the eponymous track, ‘Glorious Sunset’ is an emotional gut punch, illustrating the grief process for Doran after the passing of his mother. “And time was never on your side, not ever/I wish that it could have been better spent”. It’s everything that was great about Hundred Reasons twenty years ago and what they have learnt over the years. The guitars were always huge – drums, murderous bass that could cause earthquakes – but there’s an edge of epicness that comes from having keys low in the mix lifting everything.
‘New Glasses’ is much more direct and has the feel of something like ‘Sliver’ from the debut without sounding like it’s reaching backwards to repeat the past. It’s just so very quintessentially Hundred Reasons. “You only gonna get tonight” the big hook that accompanies all the best Hundred Reasons singles.
‘Replicate’ begins more calmly then any one of their back catalogue ever has. Echoing piano immediately indicates this is going to be a beautifully realised, for want of a better term, Power Ballad, in the best of the tradition, when it’s done right. Plucked and bowed strings are ginormous.
This is followed by ‘Done’ which you’d have thought would immediately have taken a hot distorted guitar to your face but is understated until it reaches the chorus where the combined drop D and bowel emptying bass and bass drum start to make the skin slide from your face.
‘Insultiment’ is arguably the best thing on the record. Shades of Depeche Mode and The Cure, it’s the most diverse song they’ve ever done. It’s heavy without being quite so in your face, the lyrics give it the weight “Where did you get all this rage?/Don’t put the blame on all of us”. There’s space that weaves throughout most of the song before the crescendo at the end.
‘The Old School Way’ is seamlessly led into from ‘So So Soon’ as they start to run for the finish line, it feels like the archetypal penultimate track, with rousing chorus to boot.
‘Wave Form’, like ‘Avalanche’ ends things with the melancholy and “end of the night” atmosphere, but with one last blast of big power chords.
They always have, and it feels like they always will, lead the way in emotional, life affirming, heavy rock like very few can manage. Let’s hope this isn’t their final glorious sunset.
