[Review] Just Like Vinyl - Black Mass

Just Like Vinyl emerged from the ashes of The Fall Of Troy after the release of their last album In The Unlikely Event in 2009. Thomas Erak joined forces with Jake Carden (also on guitar and vocal duties) and Henry Batts (bass) joined shortly after. With TFOT still playing their final shows the trio began rehearsals and recorded a few demos for their debut LP. The result was a self-titled album far away from TFOT virtuosic nature but still retaining the protagonism of the guitar above all. Two years later we have Black Mass, building upon the sound of their debut but turning the distortion up a few notches: the riffs are heavier, the drums sound thicker and the percentage of screaming and howling probably excedes 50% of all the vocals.

The band experiments with twisted accentuations, tempo changes and a few odd time signatures, keeping the album fresh song after song. The lyrics are probably the aspect that changed less since TFOT's separation, still tackling with themes such as cheating, love turned into hate and all that Erak has got us accustomed to.
Since the songs are much heavier that in their self titled a little of The Unlikely Event shows up in some of them (Hours And Whiskey Sours, Atm) with Lucky Star sounding like it could have been a bside from The Fall Of Troy's last effort. The mix is good and all the instruments can be heard clearly even in the noisiest moments. Overall a very good sophomore album that expands the range of JLV's sound.

8.5/10

http://justlikevinyl.com/