Strung Out’s Transmission.Alpha.Delta is amazing. I kind of just want to slap a 5/5 on it this one and leave it at that… but I’m not. I won’t do that to one of my top 10 favorite bands of all time. I can’t do that to a band that has helped fuel my love of music for a decade and a half. A band that has constantly gotten better over the years. But I will be brief.
Transmission.Alpha.Delta is about politics. About social issues and inequalities. About what’s wrong and fucked up in the world today and it’s something that I’ve been jamming out to so much that it’s been hard to write the review which is a hallmark of fantastic music. When music has the power to jolt you out of one state and put you in another, and doesn’t just blend into the background, it has power, has weight and a presence.
That’s what Transmission.Alpha.Delta is. Power, weight, and presence. There is anger, there is joy, there is venom, and there is poetry. From the first holy-shit-this-is-going-to-be-good riffs of “Rats in the Walls” to the holy-shit-it’s-over-already? old school riffs and drums of “Westcoasttrendkill” this is an album fans new and old of Strung Out should enjoy. And speaking of old school…
Peppered throughout are musical elements of Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues and Another Day in Paradise. Vocal elements of Agents of the Underground (my least favorite, but still enjoyed, album of theirs) and Blackhawks Over Los Angeles weave through out with a sprinkling of rhythms reminiscent of An American Paradox. In a nut-shell Transmission.Alpha.Delta feels like a well deserved tribute Strung Out wrote to themselves and I can’t… stop… listening to it!
Rating: 5/5