Album/EP

LOSER- All The Rage (Album Review)

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

/10

Sep 7, 2021

7 min read

LOSER- All The Rage
Released: September 10th, 2021

Line-Up:
Tim Maxwell // Vocals, guitar
Will ‘Dragon’ Maxwell // Guitar
Craig Selak // Bass, Backing Vocals
Jake Farrugia // Drums

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Warning: I am about to tell you a sad story, a story that is all too familiar after the last 18 months. In February 2020, I did my first ever interview for Wall of Sound (and ever) with Tim Maxwell from LOSER. It was a great interview, the band’s debut album Mindless Joy was about to come out, and we chatted about plans for the cool art show/album release in April or May. Well, we all know what happened to the world, and here we are in September 2021, and that art show/album release hasn’t been able to go ahead yet. On the positive side — the band has another fantastic album for you to get around.

All The Rage gets straight into the fuzzy, rock vibes with ‘Head First’. One of the things that I have always been drawn to with this band is the nostalgic sound they have, and this song takes me straight back to early 2000s, alternative, Aussie music.

This review's intro wasn’t just to depress you (sorry about that); it was to help set the scene of the band writing this album. Many of us have, and are still, struggling mentally because of the pandemic, and LOSER are no exception. The band bare their souls on this album with honest lyrics about mental health struggles and the state of the world. Tim has spoken about experiencing a mental breakdown while trying to record the vocals of ‘On The Edge’, which despite this, is a banger with lyrics that show just how done with everything the band are, which I can relate to.

Another huge song and highlight on this album is ‘Upside Down’ which the band actually released last November. If you haven’t heard this song yet, you must be living under a rock and need to remedy that ASAP! The song is about feeling disillusioned due to the state of the world and again – can relate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDPpKi22xYg&ab_channel=DomesticLaLa

Next up is ‘Time Won’t Wait’, which again has that throwback vibe, verses with an Oasis-type sound and a big 90s chorus.

‘All I Need’ is an awesome slow-banger with yet another huge chorus, a fantastic bridge and a fantastic guitar solo from Will ‘Dragon’ Maxwell. The 2000s bangers keep coming with ‘Skyward’, a pure and simple, fun song that the band explains is about aliens but can apply to mental health and the album's making.

https://youtu.be/O2byaK9J71U

Honestly, there isn’t much more I can say about the rest of the album that I haven’t already. ‘Stall’ is a really great, fast-paced banger that has a 2000s feel, ‘So’ is slower and has a rad 2000s feel and ‘Meant To Be’ closes out the album in a super lovely, acoustic way. This song plays, and suddenly I am in grade nine watching the band play it on Rove Live.

My life has been filled with nostalgic listening recently- I am absolutely obsessed with an incredible podcast about the 90s, and between episodes, I’ve not listened to much other than 90s music. Maybe I need its familiarity and the memories and feelings those songs give me to get me through. One episode talks about songs that have ‘jangle’. Essentially, songs that sound happy but have lyrics about important issues, struggles or challenging times in the songwriters’ lives. LOSER is incredibly good at the jangle, and this album shows that perfectly. The jangle has always been one of my favourite songwriting devices – before I knew there was a word for it. And the jangle is much of what has always drawn me to LOSER. The songs deal with heavy subjects and talk about super personal things but are nostalgic and often really fun. The band is also super polished, especially for a band that hasn't been around too long in the grand scheme of things. I enjoyed LOSER’s last album so much, it gave me the warm and fuzzies, and this one has done the exact same.

Man, I can’t wait to see this band live when the world finally lets it happen.