Love.Might.Kill
2 Big 2 Fail

The guys with the right ideas about love are back again with a new album following last years acclaimed debut Brace for Impact. And there are some changes since that debut album in the fact that the addition of Sascha Onnen has made them a sextet, and now the main writing isn’t only done my Michael and Jan but from more or less the entire band. The cover art is similarly styled to the debut and looks interesting, if the album title has any bearing on the result of this album we have something impressive and big to look forward to when the album sees the light of day in the middle of october. So, are they too big to fail?

Well, their heavy metal bears a traditional tone with a vocalist that has a brilliant voice and range, they build a lot on strong choruses and melodies with a sound that is excellent. The sound is very dynamic on this album and I think compared to the debut it is both more dynamic and more varied. One could actually say that they sound larger, or maybe bigger than they did on Brace for Impact. You will recognise the band due to the vocalist and the overall style of the music but at the same time it is quite evolved with a lot more layers and dynamics going on in the songs. It is not as instantly rewarding as the debut either as it may take a few playthroughs to allow it to sink in due to the more complex songs. Speaking of songs, there are twelve of them on this album with one being a short intro, they take you 55 minutes to play through once.

In a sense you could call this album too big to fail, the songs are grande and likeable and I think almost no one who listens to this can dislike it. The fact is that you really have to make an effort to find any kind of flaw in this album, but sure it might be slightly long with 55 minutes but that is hardly noticeable and you might complain about them not really reinventing the genre but they still have a sound that make them instantly recognisable for anyone slightly into the metal genre. The choruses of most of the songs are just to die for and the voice of Jan is just brilliant, this feeling in which he sings these catchy choruses just makes this a great album to listen to. It may need one or two runs to really catch on, I thought there was no hit like Pretty Little Mess of the first album but when hearing the title track a second time I found out that there was. If you want another thing that might be something to complain about you could say that there is only one mega super hit on this album as well as the first.

Still, that is not the only track that makes a decent impression, XTC, The Great Escape Home are three others that makes it. And there is no track on this album that can be called poor, all the tracks are of a high quality and the depth of the layering in the songs makes them last well even with prolonged exposure to my critical mind. It is definitely a logical step after Brace for Impact, 2 Big 2 Fail does not disappoint or fail, maybe it was a bit expected but nevertheless it distances itself more than enough from the debut to merit its existence.

In the end I would say that Love.Might.Kill does what we could expect after the first album, a great album with another really powerful hit song and a strong line up of songs that probably will not disappoint anyone. And with this bigger sound they have for this album one can really say that they have become too big to fail.