ALBUM REVIEW: My God Has Got A Gun – Vukovi

January 24, 2025 Ed Walton

It’s been a hot minute since we had an album from Ayrshire duo VUKOVI. Their last effort, NULA, came back in 2022 when the world was starting to feel like it was coming back to normal. However, normal is hard to come by these days and their latest album My God Has Got A Gun is the perfect tonic for those who are feeling the January blues this year. Luckily, My God Has Got A Gun is here to blow those new year cobwebs away with a forty five minute journey full of bangers that combine pop-punk and heavy riffs in a great way.

Opening up the album is the intro track This Is My Life And My Trauma. It’s brooding, foreboding and is the portent that a good and very cathartic experience is coming ahead of listening to this album. It quite literally starts with a bang as the atmospheric noises soon evolve into a tornado of sound that makes you itch for mosh pits from the get go, it finishes as quickly as it starts before launching into the album proper. Follow-up track Gungho almost feels like a seduction into the record as it continues to build and build throughout making you feel like something huge is coming, and you wouldn’t be wrong for feeling that way. A wonderful guitar riff teases and teases you as it evolves into a wonderful breakdown that showcases the duo at the top of their game.

The title track follows suit and continues the record’s sonic bombardment as it continues to batter you with the excellent riffs that help bring this album to life. It does have a familiar feel to modern day BRING ME THE HORIZON and even LIMP BIZKIT, particularly throughout the song’s verses before launching into more chaos, quickly becoming one of the best albums on the album and also an instant VUKOVI classic. Fallen Beyond is yet another great song that continues with the album’s seductive nature. It’s a track all about yearning and wanting another person despite knowing it isn’t good for you, it elicits a feeling that everyone will be familiar with and offers much needed catharsis amongst the mayhem.

Throughout the album, the narrative gives you a notion of feeling like you’re spiralling along with the band. Fuc Kit Up is a great example of this. It thematically tackles heavy topics of feeling like the world is swallowing you up and that even when you’re experiencing a good thing with people, there’s moments where your brain feels like it’s attacking you as it builds up the anxiety that’s always on our minds of ruining something good as soon as the going gets good. Misty Ecstasy keeps up the tempo of the album and maintains that steady course of chaotic riffs as we get to the halfway point of the album that is SNO.

For the first time on the album, VUKOVI takes a minute to slow down proceedings which gives us an atmospheric track that is another one of My God Has Got A Gun strong points. It’s full to the brim with emotion as it pummels you with incredibly solid riffs and wonderful vocals, you can tell this track is as cathartic for lead singer Janine Shilstone as it is for those listening as she boasts incredible vocals that should have people putting her on the same pantheon that includes the likes of Hayley Williams and Courtney LaPlante.

Cowboy brings in a more poppier feel to the album, synths and drumming machines come to the forefront in this track as a delightfully echoey guitar once again brings in a foreboding and uneasy atmosphere. It’s one of the more mainstream sounding tracks on the record which gives it a little variety as it focuses more on subtlety over riffs that shake you to your core, it’s a nice calm moment that gives your ears some much needed respite.

As we approach the latter parts of the album, we get to tracks Peel and Kitty which are good tracks in their own right, but aren’t quite as strong as what has come before it, becoming a slight blip in an otherwise very enjoyable listen. The final track Bladed takes us for one last ride that shows VUKOVI giving their absolute all one final time. It’s a true culmination of all the tracks that have come before it. All the emotions and feelings that have featured throughout the album all combine to create a scintillating and satisfying finale that well and truly hits the mark. There’s riffs a plenty and thundering drums that just well and truly scratch that itch just right, you may be pulling the stank face a few times as those riffs slap you in the face one last time.

My God Has Got A Gun is the perfect way for VUKOVI to kick off their 2025, as ever It’s great to see a band like VUKOVI showing a vulnerable side throughout the record, there’ll be many listeners able to relate that won’t feel so alone whilst listening who will get a great sense of empowerment whilst playing the album. Even though they’ve been around for a while now, it feels like they’re hitting their stride and will keep on delivering music of this calibre as they continue to make huge waves in the rock and metal world. Make sure you’re there for it.

Rating: 8/10