The music industry can be really, really complicated. When a band want to release an album, they first have to deal with producers and managers who can (and will) edit the final product. The album then has to be approved by the record label, before it’s eventually pushed out to the public via an army of PR people, radio pluggers and ‘social media managers’.
American rockers Alien Ant Farm decided to switch it up a bit. The band chose to fund their fifth album entirely through PledgeMusic, an online crowdfunding platform that’s designed to break down the wall between the artist and their fans. Crowdfunding is a long and arduous process, yet it’s an efficient way to create a solid fanbase – the artist can send their pledgers as many new tracks, music videos or recordings of live performances as they like, meaning that their fans can continue to be engaged with the band throughout the writing and recording processes.
Four years after they first announced their intentions to crowdfund their next long-player, Alien Ant Farm finally released their fifth album, Always and Forever. Listening to the album is an experience that can be compared to digging out your old iPod and finding it packed full of songs you haven’t heard for years. The band’s unique rhythmic style will be instantly familiar to old listeners and fans of the band, yet tracks like Let Em Know and the electric Sidelines show how much the band have progressed since the release of 2006’s Up In The Attic – Always and Forever is an album that’s packed full of mainstream music with catchy and original riffs. Despite this, the presence of darker tracks like Dirty Bombs makes it clear that the band still wish to please fans of their earlier albums. Album highlight Godlike, for example, is a shimmering rock belter that could’ve come straight from the band’s back catalogue. It’s sure to become a firm fan favourite.
Always and Forever is an undeniably great album. Each track is initially sketched out by drummer Mike Cosgrove’s simple yet effective rhythms, before Alien Ant Farm’s trademark energetic rawness is emphasised by the powerful guitar and bass riffs that are omnipresent throughout the album. It’s an album that was written to be played live – from the stomp of Sidelines to the dark groove of Godlike, it’s clear that the band had the live arena in mind throughout the process of writing and recording this album. Alien Ant Farm are currently in the middle of a world tour with Hoobastank and P.O.D, and you need to see them – this is the sound of a band in their prime, and the addition of two of rock’s most underrated bands to the lineup makes this one tour that you don’t want to miss.