Issues
Headspace
Warner Music Australia
Release Date: 20 May 2016
Review by Rod Whitfield
Pop-Metal is certainly a thing. Def Leppard and Poison were doing it back in the 80s, Babymetal probably typify it in the modern age and in between there were bands like Linkin Park and Evanescence. However, I have never heard a band combine ultra-commercial R&B oriented pop with heavy guitars and pounding drums quite like this Atlanta based five piece. And its shitloads of fun.
If you’re not familiar with this band, imagine a heavy, somewhat djenty metalcore type of sound, with sweet, poppy R&B vocals over the top. With occasional forays into dirtier vocal stylings, a little rap here and there and even some soaring metal cleans. Yes, there is dynamics and variation in the vocal department the likes of which you very rarely hear. Imagine Northlane crossed with Usher. That’s what you get on Headspace, and they do it extremely well.
So much so, that this band could appeal equally to fans of mainstream heavy music and R&B pop fans. The songs are catchy as all hell but hit pretty damn hard at the same time. I’d imagine their shows are attended by yuppy R&B types and black clad rockers in equal measures.
The so-called ‘true’ metal fans will hate this with every fibre of their being, and are probably sitting in their ivory towers of ‘true’ metaldom, slinging abuse at them from the anonymous safety of their computer keyboards as we speak. But that’s hardly the point. People with more open minds, who realise that heavy music comes in myriad shapes, sizes, forms and packages these days, are very likely to find this album eminently enjoyable.
