When I was younger my grandpa had a 1995 motorhome and every time he started it the ‘Best of Kansas’ completion album would start playing. I spent a lot of time with my grandpa growing up as a child and classic rock was always in the background, so it quickly became one of my favorite genres, as it is his.
On October 15, 2010 Unruly Child released their 5th studio album, ‘Worlds Collide.’ Unruly Child being a classic rock band I expected something with a familiar sound. But when I read through the lyrics prior to listening to the twelve tracks I got more of the classic 2000s emo, punk, pop, rock sound, with hints of teenage angst and anti-society vibes.
When looking at the tracts as a whole and putting them together the lyrics tell the story of being in a toxic relationship, losing it and missing it on a loop. A loop that supported my original view point on the album, that it's a normal 2000s punk sound.
As much as I love the 2000s pop punk scene I really wasn’t wanting to listen to yet another album that sounds just like the rest from that era. So to my delight when I did my first listen and I heard the classic rock sound, I was quite thrilled. It wasn’t the exact same 70s classic sound that I grew up on, but it took that sound and placed a modern 2000s twist on it.
The cover of an album is used to set the tone for listeners, and on ‘Worlds Collide’ there were two children sitting in space playing with what looked like plants. Behind them enforcing the theme even more was an extraterritorial like green sky. The art set the mood of a space odyssey adventure that the music follows well. By the end of the album I felt like I had been on a romantic adventure lost in space.
With every track I was reminded of a classic from my childhood. The first two tracks ‘Show Me the Money’ and ‘Insane’ almost immediately reminded me of ‘Sledgehammer’ by Peter Gabriel from the 80s. The electric galactic adventure atmosphere makes for an easy correlation between the songs and effortless transitions throughout the entire album.
It is easy to hear the influence from large name rock legends music wise, but lyricly there is an obvious influence from the music of its time. I think we see that most in the 10th track ‘Neverland.’ With lyrics like, “You can't tell me what to do…,” and, “Don't want to get older, did ya hear what I told ya, Hell no, I'm going back to Neverland.”
I know I need to find some type of criticism for this album, but I have a hard time doing that, knowing how much work goes into making albums. How musicians give a piece of themselves away in their music. So the only criticism I can come up with is that the album and Unruly Child themselves are critically underrated, just like modern classic rock.
When thinking about classic rock, I can almost guarantee most of us would think of artists in the 70s or 80s. Music in the classic rock genre is still being made and is under-appreciated. Considering Unruly Child has been making music since 1991 and continues to make music today. It’s easy to say they deserve a lot more recognition than they get, considering they have less than 10,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. But after today they have earned one more.