Greer's Ears

Anthem of the Peaceful Army is the new debut LP from Greta Van Fleet—a young, up-and-coming rock 'n' roll band based out of Frankenmuth, MI. The group took the rock music industry by storm with the release of their debut EP Black Smoke Rising  in April 2017. Their debut single "Highway Tune" quickly reached the top of the charts and stayed there for weeks to follow. The group raised a lot of eyebrows due to their uncanny sonic resemblance to the band Led Zeppelin. Nearly every nuance of lead vocalist Josh Kiszka's voice calls to mind the iconic vocals of rock legend Robert Plant. The crunchy and distorted blues riffs of guitarist Jake Kiszka are quite redolent of Jimmy Page's modus operandi. And between his tightly-tuned bottom heads and his strong emphasis on triplets, drummer Daniel Wagner is very noticeably influenced by the late John Bonham. But do all these similarities work in the group's favor? Well, yes and no. To some extent, Greta Van Fleet ...

Twenty One Pilots is an alternative pop duo from Columbus, OH. Surely you've heard of them by now. Their third studio album  Vessel  broke them into the mainstream, and their follow-up album Blurryface launched them into superstardom. I've always respected their passion, ambition, and melodic sensibilities. They have a real talent for creating "earworm" hooks and melodies that stick with you for hours or even days after listening. However, those catchy and memorable melodies are often paired with painfully generic instrumentation. And while the themes of their songs are often admirable, I've usually found their lyricism to be slightly mawkish. In the past, their music has generally left me underwhelmed. However, all of this changed with their newest studio album Trench.  Trench feels like the duo's most mature, consistent, and unique album to date. In terms of production and instrumentation, this album is leagues above anything else the band has ever...