The Traditional - How To Live Without Blood (Album Review)

The Traditional has been a band I was familiar with for a while, but when I heard "Do You Miss Me Yet?" and "My Brother Is The Sea", some of the first songs released from the band's new album How To Live Without Blood, it definitely seemed like the band were really stepping their game up. I was more than ready to give How To Live Without Blood a first listen.

Mixing elements of rock, punk, and emo The Traditional come off with a pretty intense listen on How To Live Without Blood. The guitars on this album are just so heavy sounding. In some ways they really remind me of how the guitars sounded on Manchester Orchestra's album Cope. They just rock so hard, are so heavy, and they leave such an impression on the listener. It's pretty awesome. The lead vocals are really well done and are at times comparable to someone like Dan Campbell from The Wonder Years. The back-up vocals are heavy with just strained intensity. "Skeletons" gets this album started and the album just doesn't let up much from there. The lyrics are fantastic on the song. It's a great rock song intro. The first few seconds of "Haunt You" almost felt out of place on the album until you hear the strained heavy vocals and the song launches into some great heavy moments before dropping back down and then building back up.  It really makes for a fun, intense listen. "I'm Not Going Home With You" closes the album acoustically and I really like the female back-up vocals. The vocal work, as a whole, is really great. I also like how the band ended the album on a more somber note.

In addition to all these elements and the way the vocals were done the mixing and production on this album were key and were done really nicely. I think the way the album was mixed helped this come out sounding really cohesive and allowed the standout moments of the album to shine really nicely. There are moments on this album when every member of the band feels so integral which helps bleed the emotions that are so evident throughout this entire album.

Every year there are those couple albums that get released in January or February that just stick with me. I feel like this year How To Love Without Blood is one of those albums. It's extremely well written and the band perform pretty masterfully throughout the album. I feel like this album is the champagne bottle on the side of 2015's ship. We are officially on the maiden voyage of this new year!