If you remember the boom of overly edgy, emo-influenced, hard rock in the late 2000s and early 2010s, chances are you’re familiar with the band Sick Puppies. Despite its somewhat cute name, the band has been making alt-metal fight song anthems for over two decades.
Sick Puppies released several albums throughout the 2010s and have technically remained active since, but it’s been nearly 10 years since the band’s last album, “Fury.” The members of the band have been pretty busy on their own since the release of “Fury,” but they’re ready to rock again with “Wave the Bull.”
The entire album has a very snarky tone, and it’s clear the band had a lot of fun making it, flipping between punchy, parking-lot-fight-club rippers and sad acoustic ballads. The lead single, “THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD,” sets a violent tone for the album, starting out with a guitar tone that’s somehow a lower frequency than the bass. Vocalist Bryan Scott sardonically mocking those who talk too much but don’t do anything: “You take and you waste it all / Tell me, when will you just wake up?”
“GOING PLACES” is by far the most distinctive song on the album. Despite its somewhat cringey lyrical content, such as “My head spinning like I probably said a few stupid things / I’m late for work but somehow I don’t give a shit / And besides, my job really fuckin’ stinks,” it’s still unconventional and enjoyable. The bass in this song stands out, especially in the intro and solo, but doesn’t overshadow the guitar or vocals. Scott leans into an interesting spoken-word lyrical style for its verses.
The sarcasm of “GOING PLACES” switches to regret in “FIX ME,” a pop-punky ballad that, in a surprising twist, features bass guitarist Emma Anzai on vocals for the first half of the song, a bit of a refreshing release from Scott’s raspiness. It recalls old-school Evanescence — no surprise there — and Sleeping With Sirens, and offers a slower and softer, but still emotionally challenged song to cut through the chaotic hard rock. “KNOCK YOUR LIGHTS OUT” follows in the footsteps of “THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD.” It’s another fast, punky fight tune that explodes in head bang-worthy energy throughout, complete with “chk-chk-boom” callout.
“HURRICANE” is another of the album’s more fun songs that starts with a groovy 2000s dance-club beat, incorporates a guitar line over it and then launches into another defiant radio-rock banger with just the right amount of corny. The verses maintain a dancey sound, but this doesn’t really outweigh the fact that the band managed to make a pretty standard hard rock song.
“Wave the Bull” is a mixed bag. The album gets a bit formulaic, with a lot of tracks carrying very similar themes and almost acting as extensions of each other in a way that feels redundant. While the songwriting is overall pretty good, there are times where it just feels too corny to take seriously. But there is a lot of creativity with effects and different sounds across the album, with the band using their instruments in cool ways — as with the hellish vocals on “CREATURE” or the electronics on “HURRICANE.” Anzai’s bass cuts through the mix in a way that isn’t overpowering, especially with modern rock and the metal genre’s tendency to overproduce.
At the heart of it all, it is very Sick Puppies: It is fun and obnoxious with a humorous edge that proves they don’t take themselves incredibly seriously, yet still manages to touch on the emotional side.
Contact Roshan Rao at [email protected].