Unglued Reviews

For Tiger Army’s fourth album, singer/guitarist and only constant member Nick 13 is yet again joined by new additions to the band’s perpetually rotating lineup, in the form of Jeff Roffredo and James Meza on stand-up bass and drums, respectively. The trio begin the album strongly with the rattling intro Prelude: Signal Return and its familiar refrain of “Tiger Army never die!”; Hotprowl is likewise psychobilly of the first order, also incorporating an AFI influence and a breakdown towards the end. And despite starting with acoustic guitar and being quieter overall, Afterworld maintains this energy.

From this point, however, the album steadily loses ground with its psychobilly fanbase. While the familiar slap bass is still evident on several tracks like Ghosts Of Memory and Lunatone, the urgent pace that opened the album is lacking, and just as many tracks find songwriter Nick 13 branching out wildly. Forever Fades Away is balladic melodic rock (beginning on an oddly disco-oriented beat), and Where The Moss Slowly Grows is country-influenced, complete with pedal steel guitar, while the Tex-Mex Hechizo de Amor has lyrics unexpectedly sung entirely in Spanish. But As The Cold Rain Falls is definitely the most unusual cut on the album, sounding for all intents and purposes like The Cure, with shimmering rhythms and keyboards ripped straight from the 80s.

Some criticisms from longterm followers are clearly inconsequential (the album has less than the traditional 13 tracks, and the title doesn’t follow the expected Tiger Army IV: naming convention). But there does seem to be a loss of identity on this album, and it’s hard to know where they’ll go next.

Owen Heitmann