Reviewed by Allan Jones
Release Date: March 18 2016
While this is the third album from The Treatment, and the first since last year’s line-up change that saw new vocalist Mitchell Emms (who was apparently on the Voice, TV fans) and guitarist Tao Grey join the band. If you’ve heard their previous albums, you’ll already be familiar with their particular brand of energetic old-school classic rock – they’ve been making waves since their 2011 debut and still sound pretty much the same now as they did then. In fact, if I didn’t know that the singer and guitarist had been replaced, I probably wouldn’t have realised, and would have put the tighter sound purely down to the change in production quality. This newfound focus elevates the new album above their previous two – but the overall feel of things is pretty much the same as it ever was. It’s just that now it comes across with more power and sounds better.
It’s like upgrading your phone to the latest model by the same manufacturer – everything still feels familiar and cosy, but now it has a little more punch and snap to everything that it does. Emms’ vocal is a great example of this – on the surface, it’s the same gritty classic rock vocal as on previous albums but the more you listen the more you realise that it’s stronger, more varied, and far more capable than it was before. It’s a subtle but very welcome improvement.
Sure, there’s no major growth and progression in what they’re delivering here, but we’re talking about a sound that’s rooted in the seventies and hasn’t changed much since. The likes of AC/DC, Airbourne, Rose Tattoo and so on have been basically making the same album for years, and they’re all pretty much awesome. All we really care about is whether it makes you want to make the devil horns and head-bang, and The Treatment deliver this in spades.
Subtlety and nuance are not things that you’ll find on this kind of album. This album is purely about big crunchy guitar riffs, wailing solos, thumping drum beats, and a bass-line that powers along behind it while the gritty vocals soar along on top. It’s uncomplicated, frenetic, and full of energy and drive that has you tapping your feet on the floor almost subconsciously.
The Treatment are not a one-trick pony, though – songs like ‘Backseat Heartbeat’ show that they’re more than capable of slowing it down a little when they want to. It’s just that when they do, you want them to go back to the pumped up fun of their other tracks. As the album progresses, you start to realise that the band have pulled off a neat trick – they’ve managed to improve just about every aspect of what they delivered on the earlier albums but without losing what was good about them in the first place. Well worth a listen.
7 out of 10
Track Listing:
- Let It Begin
- The Devil
- Tell Us The Truth
- Generation Me
- Backseat Heartbeat
- Cry Tough
- We Are Beautiful
- I Know She Knows
- Bloodsucker
- Better Think Again
- Light The Sun
