Lonely the Brave
Things Will Matter
Release Date: May 20, 2016
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Hassle
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Album Review: Things Will Matter by Lonely the Brave
Exceptionally Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 10/10
To many, Lonely the Brave's debut album The Day’s War heralded the arrival of a group of beyond musically proficient guys from Cambridge, capable of proffering a blend of an almost innumerable musical styles - a blossoming get-thee-behind-me-satanic-genre-labelers crusade. And to the band's real devotees, the album wholly transcended music, humanity, and possibly even Thom Yorke. And on the follow up, Things Will Matter, there are numerous moments where Lonely the Brave stupefy with their undeniably vast musical sensibilities, almost to a depressing degree, when one realises that it's unlikely to result in actual stardom now that the meek multi-hair-dyed and multi-horrendous pop princesses of the world have long ago inherited the Earth.
Based on rating 8/10
"Few, if any, bands are really bleeding on record like this any more." Following a debut as monolithic as ‘The Day’s War’ was never going to be easy. A lesser band might have botched it. A lesser band might have made the same record again. Lonely The Brave are not that band.‘Things Will Matter’ is a dense collection of music.
Based on rating 7/10
Sophomore albums shouldn't really showcase a band seemingly consolidating a sound and becoming ever more comfortable in their own skin while simultaneously throwing up all kinds of questions of what their sound is, yet that's exactly what Lonely The Brave manage to do on their follow-up to 2014's The Day's War. Things Will Matter twists its twists and turns its turns but with every playback there's a realisation that there are two different bands at work here; not literally of course but figuratively as Lonely The Brave have evenly devoted themselves to Frightened Rabbit-esque indie and rousing, arena-sized rock. Having the variety isn't the issue as the band are incredibly confident in both their skins but it feels as though there's too much musical fence-sitting on Things Will Matter and jumping off that fence in either direction would reveal some exciting, hidden depths to the band.
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