Album Review: This Century – To Love And Back EP

This Century boast a number of impressive credentials next to their name at such an early stage in their musical careers what with over 10,000 downloads since early this year and support slots with bands such as Mayday Parade and The Maine. Not bad for a band who were unsigned at the time right? They’re obviously doing something right as The Maine have recently signed them to their label, ‘Action Theory’, and this release backs this up their faith in the band, 100%.

Lead track ‘Battling a Heavy Heart’, gives us a good taste of what to expect from the rest of this release, with the sweet vocals of Joel Kanitz an ever present force as demonstrated in this perfect mix of commercial pop music and rhythmic guitar work.

Tracks such as ‘To Love And Back’ and ‘Running’ are reminiscent of the material we’re used to hearing from bands such as All Time Low and Sing It Loud, however This Century arguably take things one step further without overkilling the genre present woah’s and with jerky yet effective guitar work that has you dancing instantly to these summer time hits. At times it’s hard to believe that a band with an average age of just 21 can produce a release with hit after hit such as this.

Songs such as ‘Go Get Her’ are written for radio play and this track in particular shows just what the band are capable for. Tracks such as this have the potential to be blasted out around club nights from the US to the UK and back with the lyrics sung back a million times over. The lyrics in these songs aren’t deep, they aren’t meaningful in anyway. But they’re fun. They sum up the demographic of people listening to bands in this genre with lyrics such as ‘Go, go, go and get her, don’t just let her turn you away’ and it’s important to take it for what it is - good pop music.

The pop-rock genre may be saturated right now but this EP is a breath of fresh air. This Century aren’t covering any new ground with this release, but what they’re doing is certainly a good representation of a band doing it well. Here’s to hoping that this band are brought over to the UK as support on a similar bands tour sometime soon.

5/5

'To Love And Back' EP by This Century is available now.

This Century on Myspace and Twitter

Tom Smith