Album Review: Such Hot Blood by The Airborne Toxic Event

After two albums of increasingly big indie rock, the Airborne Toxic Event take a little time to wander with their third album, Such Hot Blood. Working this time with producer Jacquire King, who has worked with artists like Dawes, Of Monsters and Men, and Tom Waits, the band make full use of his versatility, stepping away from the rhapsodic, Arcade Fire-inflected rock of their previous albums to try something a little smaller and more personal. On the country-inflected "Bride & Groom," it feels as if the band is going for something a little more earnest, evoking emotion from the listener through the song's narrative rather than strapping it to a rocket of strings and synths and shooting for the stars.

Full Review >>

It isn’t entirely clear if Airborne Toxic Event exists as a vehicle for Mikel Jollett to talk about girls or if girls exist for Mikel Jollett to write about them. Either narrative wouldn’t tell the whole story of Jollett’s band or their ambitious and troubling third LP, Such Hot Blood, but it would begin to narrow the frame a bit. This proves a less than original thesis for the genre, mainstream rock and roll, and the band, who first made their name with the little-single-that-could, “Sometime Around Midnight”, ostensibly about a woman who made the protagonist’s life completely miserable.

Full Review >>