I do think the concept was nice, but the end product is uneven, Album Rating: 4.0glad you reviewed this sunny, as a full package i might dig this more than hello exile. California singer-songwriter Rick Shea, whose credits include stints with Dave Alvin and Chris Gaffney delivers a dispatch on life of this most trying of years, 2020. As the song builds to its emotionally battered chorus, Barnett balls up their pain as he cries, "Maybe it's best we pretend like we never met / Forget everything that we've ever known / Maybe it's better we both stay strangers forever.". ‘Portland’, ‘Strain Your Memory’ and ‘Strawberry Mansion’ are all brilliantly reworked as charming folk numbers, with the lead guitar parts from the originals redone as upbeat fingerpicked parts. Instead, it builds on what the Los Angeles post-hardcore band do so well already. Digging: C.O.F.F.I.N - Children Of Finland Fighting In Norway, Album Rating: 3.5I do sort of agree that the whole album wasn't necessary, an EP of the best tracks here would've been really cool. Inspired by Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, "Strangers Forever" is the band at their anthemic best. Of course, this still being a THE MENZINGERS record means listeners are still very much in for a huge dose of the singalong choruses they know and love, and even in this form From Exile delivers. However, It's the band's exploration of melody that stops it from coming across as suffocatingly bleak. by thesoundboardreviews; Posted on September 27, 2019 September 27, 2019; However The Menzingers would choose to follow up After The Party, it was never going to be an easy task. 03/02 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Melkweg November 2011, © by Ox-Fanzine - Ausgabe #84 Oktober/November 2020 und Dennis Müller, © by Ox-Fanzine - Ausgabe #131 April/Mai 2017 und Sophie Brakemeier, © by Ox-Fanzine - Ausgabe #146 Oktober/November 2019 und, © by Ox-Fanzine - Ausgabe #73 August/September 2007 und Nadine Maas, © by Ox-Fanzine - Ausgabe #130 Februar/März 2017 und Sophie Brakemeier, © by Ox-Fanzine - Ausgabe #146 Oktober/November 2019 und Frank Weiffen, © by Ox-Fanzine - Ausgabe #100 Februar/März 2012 und Joachim Hiller, © by Ox-Fanzine - Ausgabe #113 April/Mai 2014 und Alex Schlage. Hello Exile is the Menzingers' most thematically heavy and emotionally weightiest album, as well as their boldest and most self-assured. Taken in that context, it would be impossible for the band to have written After the Party part two. "Strain My Memory", is at its heart, a bruised, painfully honest love song. Amongst the cutting, perfectly observed lines lie the soon to be classic "what kind of monsters did our parents vote for". Mit neuem Album im Gepäck geht es dann 2020 auch direkt auf Europa-Tour, hier die Termine: 25/01 – Hamburg, Germany – Gruespan His guitar sounds like it's on fire. While the original sounds like an angry ‘fuck you’ to an ex-girlfriend, on the acoustic version Barnett sounds laid back and indifferent, in a similar vein to ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ by Bob Dylan. It almost seems like they’ve approached their own songs as though they were covering someone else’s, looking for ways to put a different stamp on each one. Barnett's lyrics artfully capture a couple wrestling with the big questions in their relationship as they vow to endure despite the odds being stacked against them. Damit werden essentielle Funktionen eingeschaltet und die Nutzung unserer Seite analysiert, um Dir auch zukünftig das bestmögliche Surf- und Einkaufserlebnis bieten zu können. "Strangers Forever" is my favorite cut from here. The Menzingers started life in 2006 in Scranton, Pennsylvania as a punk … Right from the off, opener America encapsulates the overall tone of this sonic transformation fairly well, trading in the driving power-chords of the original for a jaunty acoustic guitar-led bounce. The album was already excellent to begin with but hearing the re-imagined songs is just as good. 04/02 – Antwerp, Belgium – Zappa From Exile» Back to review: Comments: Add a Comment : Previous; 1; 2; Jom Staff Reviewer September 30th 2020 . I've had it on as background music on repeat for a couple days now (I think Sloth said the same thing), agreed the new Strain Your Memory is not good, which is a shame since the original was one of the highlights of the original album Leaving little doubt that the Menzingers are a different band to the one that wrote After the Party, it ends the album on, not so much a full stop, but with a "to be continued". 29/01 – Zurich, Germany – Dynamo Im Zuge der Ankündigung veröffentlichte die […] © 1999-2020 PopMatters.com. After the triumphant critical and commercial success of their superb album 2017, After the Party, the people's punk rock band, the Menzingers return, older, a little wiser but also as bewildered, lost and anxious as the rest of us. Opening paragraph articulates perfectly how I feel about Hello Exile. However The Menzingers would choose to follow up After The Party, it was never going to be an easy task. Alles andere würde mir ja eh das Herz brechen. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Access Our Digital Issues Through Patreon, Havok release new music video for ‘Fear Campaign’, Pulchra Morte release new song ‘The Serpent’s Choir’, Divide and Dissolve release new music video for ‘We Are Really Worried About You’, Bound In Fear release new music video for ‘Stigmata’. I think I agree for the most part; I do like the sound here a lot, though. Definitiv haben The Menzingers hier wieder ein wunderbares Album geschaffen, das Fans des melodischen PunkRocks überzeugen wird. 11/02 – Glasgow, United Kingdom – QMU And this brings us to their most recent release, Hello Exile, in which the punk elements are few and far between. The Menzingers bringen am 04. On ‘Strangers Forever’, Barnett’s vocals take on a more ghostly quality, compared to his ordinarily gruff delivery. And agreed, the band generally does this type of sound well, Album Rating: 3.5I do have to say, this is typical Menzingers in that even though I merely enjoy it, it's so listenable. Das derbere Soundgewand der früheren Scheiben vermisse ich ja schon ein wenig. © by Ox-Fanzine - Ausgabe # und 6. Album Rating: 3.5Wanted to give this a writeup. Schnell wird klar, was uns erwartet. Online: Facebook Twitter Website. From Exile is out now via Epitaph Records. Thank you for your life, Eddie Van Halen. The first single, "Anna", is a melodic, widescreen rock anthem. veröffentlicht Debütalbum, DESCENDENTS-Sänger Milo Akuerman startet Ukulele-Projekt, WORLD BE FREE: Neue EP „One Time For Unity“ erscheint im…, RYKERS verschieben geplante Jahresabschlusstour auf 2021, NORDEND: Hardcore-Band aus Frankfurt im Interview, IRONED OUT veröffentlichen Video „Pavement Strong“ & Interview zum neuen Album, Interview mit FREIDENKERALARM: „Wir sind grundsätzlich sehr zufrieden damit, vollkommen unabhängig…, CHEAP STUFF im Interview über ihr aktuelles Album „Kings & Pawns“, The Slackers – Blue (Single) ::: Review (2020), Jenny Don’t And The Spurs – Paso Del Norte ::: Review…, Laura Jane Grace – Stay Alive ::: Review (2020), CoreTex Records Weekly Top-20 (KW 40, 2020), Happy Release Day! Aber nein, sie sind ein bisschen älter geworden und auch ihr Sound klingt reifer, ohne dabei an Energie und Dynamik einzubüßen. Fast möchte man meinen, die Herren wären immer noch Protagonisten eines amerikanischen Teenie-Films. The record is a track-for-track acoustic reworking of latest album ‘Hello Exile’, and was completed in lockdown – or exile, if you will. Hello Exile is the Menzingers' most thematically heavy and emotionally weightiest album, as well as their boldest and most self-assured. It’s testament to Barnett’s proficiency as a lyricist that the same set of lyrics can have such a profoundly different impact when the song is played a different way. Producer Mark Hellinger may have committed the biggest crime in the filming of Jules Dassin's classic film-noir, 'The Naked City'. Thankfully, it did, and the result is a superb re-imagining of one of The Menzingers’ best records. Released 25 September 2020 on Epitaph. Allerdings schließt sich Hello Exile der eher glatteren Produktion des Vorgängers After The Party an. Recording occurred remotely, with each band member playing their parts, sending them to each other and – in the words of vocalist and guitarist Greg Barnett – praying “it all made sense when pieced back together”. The band has always been favorites of mine, and their discography is easily one of the most rock-solid in the modern punk scene. With producer Will Yip once again handling the controls, the band has expanded their palette to include elements of classic rock, Americana, and a light sprinkling of country. Ebenso wie der Vorgänger After The Party aus dem Jahr 2017 (der für mich übrigens immer noch so brandaktuell zu sein scheint) wird die neue Platte über Epitaph Records veröffentlicht. Northerner living in London, via Cardiff. ‘High School Friend’ is reworked in a comparable manner, taking a relatively upbeat song with sad lyrics and turning it into a slow, melancholic acoustic song. Musically, it's one of their most diverse pieces yet, betraying clear Americana influences with a memorable, hummable lead guitar line. With crackling guitars and pounding drums, the band wrap all of their experiences crisscrossing the country into a razor-sharp social commentary on the country they love. During lockdown and stay at home orders because of Covid-19, The Menzingers repurposed their last full-length album Hello Exile into a more of a stripped-down, acoustic style and I love it! It's Barnett at his most introspective, vulnerable and unflinchingly honest. Schönes Ding, aber wie alle freue ich mich schon darauf, die ersten verzerrten Klänge wieder aus nächster Nähe um die Ohren geblasen zu bekommen. New releases like this are a way that bands can bring in some much needed income at a time when opportunities to tour seem like a remote possibility. On the slower end of things, May’s other songwriting contribution Last To Know, and the haunting (and now perhaps incredibly apt for many of us in 2020) I Can’t Stop Drinking both gain some gorgeously-arranged violin from Kayleigh Goldsworthy, while the anthemic Strangers Forever becomes an echo-drenched ballad of titanic proportions. As ever the Menzingers have grown with their fans as they address the everyday obstacles we all face with unmatched authenticity. Like most ‘rework’ albums, how much you get out of From Exile will likely depend on both how you felt about Hello Exile, and your inclination towards acoustic guitars and tinges of country music. CD. There may be a financial motivation, as well as a creative one, behind this trend. Lover of festivals, hater of getting wet socks at festivals. Whether it be loss, decaying relationships, or the redemptive power of friendship, the Menzingers articulate those feelings in a way that few modern rock bands can.