2. Alexisonfire - "Otherness"

I utterly love this album; I have been transfixed by it since it emerged in late June of this year. Most interestingly from a critical perspective, I never expected to love it at all and it was getting a cordial listen to tick it off the list. Alexisonfire are a veteran and much-venerated post-hardcore act. In the main, they have existed outside of my personal musical world. To me, they have always been one of those makeshift landfill bands that exist primarily to fill up the afternoon rosta at Leeds festival before the big guns come on. I have never perceived them to be anything special, they just seemed to be another identikit bunch of Americans doing ineffectual and unremarkable replicas of stuff I’ve heard a million times before 

“Otherness” has caught me completely unaware because it sounds nothing like I expected it to. It is not a screaming album, and it is also not an angry or incendiary one. It is actually an incredibly mature and incredibly articulate set of well-made melodic rock songs. In many ways, this is classic rock reinvented for the 21st century. It is brimful of exquisitely engineered songwriting and absolutely astonishing virtuoso musical performances from the band. It certainly doesn’t fit into what I would call post-hardcore.

Instead, there are slices of prog, sprinkles of trad metal, and even dollops of country rock. The ten tracks feel unbound by perceived genres and instead are intent on exploring different musical textures and ideologies. It is probably the first time the comparison has ever been made, but for me I heard huge amounts of early 90s Marillion and Rush within the sonic composition. 

For an album created in a single week, there is such a feeling of quality and exquisite construction. Completely contrary to the timescale of its creation, it doesn’t feel rushed. Instead, all the constituent parts have time to breathe and to develop. It is an extraordinary record that feels warm and familiar but also has just the right number of new ideas to stretch the imagination. What it has very much taught me is never to judge a book by its cover.