Strung Out are back with a new record. Four years after the last full length the guys have a new drummer and new full length record for our listening pleasure.

These guys have come a long way from their skatepunk beginnings as they play now a metalic and technical version of skatepunk which influenced so many bands. There are 13 new songs on this record and my feelings are divided after listening to it a couple of times now. Some songs are really superb with a lot of catchy melodies and beautiful riffs in the song structures like for example Rebels and Saints, Under the Western Sky, Monuments or Hammer Down, but too bad the whole album is not like that. There are some songs in which Strung Out kinda slow down and take almost poppy approach to the songs, still staying too technical to be pop punk and too poppy to be hardcore punk. So, this album is of course a must for all the hardcore fans of the band, but it is just another record in the band´s opus, nothing to remember them by. It is better than the last one, but not as good as Exile in Oblivion for example. Still, there are more good songs than boring ones here.

7,5/10

https://fatwreck.com/