ALBUM REVIEW: Ignore This – Dead Pony
DEAD PONY’s debut album Ignore This is heavy, loud, and with the aim to be impossible to ignore, it’s a major success. The band were sick and tired of trying to be what the modern music industry wanted, continually being ignored and lost in an oversaturated crowd despite doing what they’d been told. Ignore This is their response to that feeling. Expanding on this, guitarist and lead composer Blair Crichton said: “As a band, we’ve experienced an awful lot of being ignored. We really don’t like that. So we set about making a debut LP so good that people had to pay attention. It’s a record that literally dares people to ‘Ignore THIS…’”
The album starts with the antagonist is ignorance, a track that builds momentum before getting into the real nitty gritty. This is the first of four shorter tracks on the album that work almost like ads to break it up, keeping you on your toes. Each interlude track is completely different from one another and the rest of the album, which feels rather cinematic when the album’s played from start to finish.
From here, we’re introduced to Ignore This’ key, most consistent features: heavy, thrashing guitars, catchy vocals, and glitchy electronic audio effects that often feel post-apocalyptic in how they’re used. The album is designed to feel like flipping through old VHS tapes, in the same way that QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE made Songs For The Deaf (2002) feel like flicking through radio stations. This is done well, with the band incorporating external audio clippings into tracks, as well as an overall white noise, fizzling-like quality. The title track is full of many different layers that continually overlap and switch places. Sometimes the vocals slip below the guitar noise – a clever nod to how the band feel ignored and pushed down by the modern music industry.
A lot of tracks on the album feel larger than life. MK Nothing, AWOL, COBRA, and MANA are each very similar in how they emphasise their loud and heaviness, however, there are tracks like RAINBOWS and Bad Girlfriend that contrast by being more electro-based and feeling softer in parts. I Might Die is one of the best tracks on the album. It’s musically reminiscent of Smells Like Teen Spirit in the verses, before going all out in the chorus and even featuring a guitar solo come the second half. It’s the perfect example of how Ignore This can’t be pigeonholed to one genre, and proves just how astounding Anna Shields’ vocals are.
When it comes to the overall genre of the album, there’s not one single label that you could instantly pinpoint to it. Instead, Ignore This features everything from nu-metal riffs to pop-punk energy, as well as classic rock guitar solos and electro-synth. This proves that Ignore This is DEAD PONY simply being themselves. The band aren’t trying to be anything they’re not, they’re not trying to adhere to just one genre and categorise themselves, which works.
Drawing in the end of the album, Faces On The Wall is an effective way to bring it all together. It’s powerful, heavy, and catchy – three things that seem to define Ignore This as a whole. However, the album isn’t over there. DEAD PONY throw a curveball at the very end with Motor City Mad Man. It’s hard to explain exactly what’s going on here, but it is a fun way to make the finale of the album memorable, despite being absolutely unhinged.
All in all, Ignore This is a fabulous debut album. Special credits are due as the album is both written and produced entirely by the band themselves, with Blair Crichton taking the lead on it. Not a lot of bands at this level have the ferocity to make something as powerful as Ignore This, so it’s truly exciting to see what DEAD PONY will bring to the future of their scene.
Rating: 7/10
Ignore This is set for release on April 5th via LAB/Seeker Records.
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