Album Review: Kids In Glass Houses - 'Dirt'

At first listen this album is great, being a big fan of pop punk music it generally ticked all the boxes , catchy choruses, upbeat songs, easy listening until i started listening to it over again and for some reason i started to realise that it wasn’t as great as i first thought.

The album opener ‘Artbreaker I’ is the perfect opener continuing where their previous album ‘Smart Casual’  had left off with a heavier rockier sound, this is followed by another powerful drum and riff heavy song ‘The Best Is Yet To Come’ both with single potential.

This second album from the Welsh five piece starts and finishes strongly and although most of the songs make a significant contribution to the overall album i feel that there a defiantly some filler songs that evidently are the downfall to this potentially great album. When it comes to ‘Lily Rose’, ‘Undercover Lover’, ‘ For Better or Hearse’ and ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ (guest vocals by New Found Glory) these songs all lack the same thing, and do get a little bit boring, possible even worse than that is that these songs all follow each other on the album which makes a significant part of the album skip able.

This album defiantly sounds like a lot of things i have heard before and with the pop punk scene packed with so many different bands they could have done something different to make this second offering stand out more. These young Welsh kids still have a lot of things to learn and with that i believe will come a more innovative album, their lack of lyricism has been made up by their catchy beats and great sound but is sometimes a reason for its lack of impact, hopefully in time that will come too.

Kids In Glass Houses are amongst a wave of punk pop emerging in recent times, however i feel their efforts have gotten lost in the crowd, although still a great band and potentially an awesome second album with the genre so full of successful bands already they will have to do something extraordinary and different to be recognised as one of those bands. 'Dirt' was defiantly their opportunity to do so however they stuck to what they know best and released a good, but not great second album.

1. "Artbreaker I"

2. "The Best Is Yet to Come"

3. "Sunshine"

4. "Matters At All"

5. "Youngblood (Let It Out)"

6. "Lilli Rose"

7. "Giving Up"

8. "For Better or Hearse"

9. "Undercover Lover"

10. "Maybe Tomorrow"

11. "The Morning Afterlife"

12. "Hunt the Haunted"

13. "Artbreaker II"