Album Review by Mark Bayross
This is the debut album from The Lucky Nine, the band comprising A bassist Dan Carter (the founder), Cable drummer Richie Mills and Hundred Reasons’ Colin Doran, and follows their eponymous EP earlier in the year.
Opener VESSEL & VINE gets things off to a superb start: urgent and savage, it grabs you by the throat and throws you around till you’re left blinking and grinning in “what was that?” fashion. The two-minute THE PROGRAM ups the ante even further – Doran sounds totally wired, like he’s finally able to let loose.
Elsewhere, elements of everything from grunge and hardcore to the spine-tingling sound of Tool come together in impressive synthesis. THE LIGHT FROM PASSING CARS is epic and dynamic in all the right places while likes of HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED? And HOLLOWED OUT chart similar territory to the Deftones…and you can’t offer much higher praise than that.
Whether The Lucky Nine is an exercise in catharsis for all concerned (Dan and Colin particularly) or an outfit with real longevity, they have produced a powerful, rousing album that’s as fun to listen to as it must have been to make.
