Album Review

Various – Kerrang! The Album ’09

• 2nd Aug 2009

Eight years ago Kerrang! released their first compilation album. To my sixteen-year-old self this was beyond awesome; all the popular rock music of the day in one place, it was quickly a playground favourite at my school. Revisiting that first one for the first time in a good while, I cringe a little. There are some tracks that still stand up to scrutiny today, but the noxious whiff of nu metal hangs heavy over it all. Quite right really, Kerrang! compilations are effectively the alternative equivalent of the Now albums, snapshots whatever happened to be popular at the time.

Fast forward to present day: Kerrang! The Album 09 boasts a substantial tracklist – 42 tunes, meaning a wide range of music is represented, kicking off with Green Day’s “Know your Enemy”, the first CD is certainly the more accessible, predominantly stocked with pop-rock and punk numbers from the likes of The All American Rejects, Nickelback and Spinnerette. Lots of big choruses and pop sensibilities but there’s a punkier edge provided, for example, by My Chemical Romance’s surprisingly well pulled-off Dylan cover (“Desolation Row”).

The second CD is for the heavier palette: bristling with names like Slipknot, Killswitch, Lamb of God, it’s predominantly metal and hardcore, in fact it’s more or less exclusively metal an hardcore, it can go for tracks without a melody, and makes for an intense listen. A revelation to me is Blakfish’s “Economics”, a searing piece of hardcore rage directed at the architects of the recession. It’s all a revelation to me though really, I’m naturally more inclined to enjoy the fayre offered by the first disc, but the metalhead in me is roused by a collection of songs that serves as a promising indication of the quality of heavy music right now.

This compilation is great value for money for anybody who wants to check the pulse of popular alternative music, or who just wants a load of quality songs in one place.