Tonight Alive

Limitless (2016)

SilentMark

Tonight Alive's 2011 release What are you so scared of? came when Paramore dipped in quality, so it was nice to have a band of similar ilk who were up for hard and fun pop-punk music. Their second release The Other Side had its problems, mainly that it was forgettable. Nothing came out and grabbed me like, say, "Starlight" and "Thank you And Goodnight" did.

It seems like they have started writing for their popularity. Writing for their big shows, for arenas etc. It’s not a bad thing to have aspirations, but songs like "Oxygen" that sound big and epic seem to be only written with a lighting sequence and a video screen in mind. There was no substance to it other than beautiful vocals and a vast sound. This song wouldn’t sound right in a small club in the North of England, but it lacks something to make it a Green Day "Are We the Waiting" style song.

The first song "To Be Free" was a weak start. The vocals at the start seemed too electronically manipulated and the lyrics were weak. They just seemed like they had a rhyming dictionary and said “right, what rhymes with urgency?” I also found that Jenna tried to sound like a combination between Alanis Morissette and a 90s Girl Group. A few songs on the album seem like they wear their influence on their sleeve. ‘Everywhere’ sounds like a Coldplay song, ‘We Are’ sounds like an electronic Kylie Minogue. They just seemed to have lost their sound.

This band tunes itself out after a while. Not because it’s a terrible album. The melodies are beautiful, Jenna’s vocals are always stunning and it’s a very tightly produces album. But there‘s just nothing in it that exciting about it. It’s an album like Love by Angels and Airwaves. ou might listen to it because you specifically don;t want to concentrate on it. The album isn’t bad, it's just missing something that made Tonight Alive’s first outing so good.