Album Review: Bones by Young Guns

Review Summary: Unless a certain TV series exposes ‘Bones’, Young Guns won’t fill arenas just yet.It may admittedly be personal preference which dictates such an opinion, but it has always surprised just how few rock bands play a huge, anthemic style that should appeal to a mass worldwide audience. Fear of personal preservation in taking on the big boys is an issue, but it only takes a few songs of such a sound to catch on, and a band could be filling arenas just like Muse and Kings of Leon... Or better yet, filling stadiums like Foo Fighters, Green Day and U2.

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Riding the crest of the British emo-rock wave, High Wycombe five-piece Young Guns' 2010 debut, All Our Kings Are Dead, offered little to differentiate the group from the likes of You Me at Six, Kids in Glass Houses, or the countless other bands that have cornered the Kerrang! market since the rise of Lostprophets. Despite frontman Gustav Wood's claims that their second album, Bones, recorded in locations as diverse as a luxury studio in Thailand and a shed in the small village of Little Marlow, is something of a rebirth, the majority of its 12 tracks encounter exactly the same indistinguishable problems as their first. Their ability to create full-throttle, ear-shattering stadium rock anthems is never in doubt, as evident on the rabble-rousing call-and-response nu metal title track, the aggressive glam-tinged punk of "Towers (On My Way)," and the propulsive Foo Fighters-esque opener, "I Was Born, I Have Lived, I Will Surely Die.

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What’s next when your anthemic debut album earns you support slots with Enter Shikari, Lostprophets and the mighty Bon Jovi? Do you lap up the luxury of your new status or do you aim for bigger things? Well, if you’re Young Guns, you go back the places you started. On the press release for second album Bones, pretty boy frontman Gustav Wood says: 'We ended the first album cycle on a real high, playing venues we’d always dreamed of, but this record is a rebirth for us.' Not that you’d notice the redirection. Bones, like debut All Our Kings are Dead, is a slick production that attempts to tower above everything else with huge, energetic rock moments.

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London-based prospects return with an energetic second album. Ian Winwood 2012 With the release this week of Van Halen’s surprisingly impressive comeback album, A Different Kind of Truth, many an ageing rock fan has been reflecting that rock stars are no longer made as once they were. And while the image of David Lee Roth springing around a stage with tongue in cheek and one leg 180 degrees above his head is tough to beat, older listeners are often too quick to damn and dismiss young bands who emerge in their own middle age.Last year Young Guns performed their largest headline show to date, an evening at the 2,000-capacity Forum in London’s Kentish Town.

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‘Bones’ is the second album from Bucks quintet Young Guns following their self released debut which saw them grab sought after support slots with the likes of Lostprophets. This influence is keenly felt throughout but overwhelmingly so in the stunning opener ‘I Was Born, I Have Lived, I Will Surely Die’ which could easily be mistaken for there more famous counterparts with its earnest vocals and stratospheric chorus. It’s a call to arms and brutal statement of intent whose fire is quelled by ‘Dearly Departed’, apparently written during a period of writers block and after a couple of bottles of vodka which may explain the sub Panic At The Disco / Fall Out Boy vibe complete with accompanying vocal impersonation.

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