The one saving grace of these crazy times is you can always count on music to bring you back. Just when you start losing hope after watching the news or reading some BS online, you can retreat back to your bedroom, pop in your headphones, and go on a mini-vacation. Of course, we can’t just bury our heads in the sand either. When you can’t run away anymore, get woke with some smart bands with essential information to enlighten yourself. There are a lot of terrific modern bands making important music with a message like Prophets of Rage, OTEP, or Anti-Flag. One of those bands putting in work right now is Nonpoint, armed with their new album X (Spinefarm). On their tenth album in over 20 years as a band, they deserve their well-earned respected veteran status.
Armed and ready for blood right out of the gate, the band has never sounded more hungry or on fire at times. Blazing riffs, head-nodding beats, and deft lyrical flows abound on X. As always the band has immense hooks too, which figures to make this album one of the catchiest political albums you will hear this year as well. Whether the struggle is internal or external, Vocalist/frontman Elias Soriano has a way of making every lyric meaningful to the listener on a personal level.
Ripping out of the gate with opening track ‘Empty Batteries’, the chaotic thrash riffs, and screaming vocals almost had me feeling the old-school hardcore punk feels. I can’t wait to see hear this song live and watch the kids go nuts. The chorus is huge and will give you the goosebumps. ‘Chaos and Earthquakes’ is a more typical mid-tempo track for the band, with rapped vocals, and an enormous refrain. This song really encapsulates the current mood of the country and should really resonate.
‘Fix This’ and ‘Crashing’ are both catchy, heavy, anthemic type tracks. Driving beats, and some cool ear-worm guitar magic from both. Mega sing-along ‘Passive Aggressive’ is another track I’d love to hear in a concert setting. This track has Sirius/XM Octane radio hit song written all over it.
The album has a few more seriously heavy tracks such as ‘Dodge Your Destiny’, and ‘Milestone’, but no doubt that ‘Feel The Way Feel’ is your “get your lighters out” moment. It’s really cool to hear the band switch it up and go against the grain when it comes to sequencing tracks in the age of streaming.
None of the songs here over-stay their welcome or feel overdrawn. By this stage in their career, the members of Nonpoint know how to express themselves perfectly, put down their tracks, leave you with a poignant message, and get out of dodge. The results on X are that it is one of the most complete albums top to bottom in their career.
8.0/10
KEITH CHACHKES