Album Review: Inglorious - We Will Ride

With their last album, Inglorious finally broke free of the tropes of bluesy hard rock to create something that was both more modern and more interesting. Nathan James always had the voice, but he finally had the songs to back up his band's promise. That record was great, and a harbinger of Inglorious perhaps breaking through in a way that a lot of modern bands aren't able to. But then a funny thing happened, and the band that made that record imploded before it could even be released. So James had to put together a new version of Inglorious, and the momentum of the previous record was halted as the new configuration learned how to be a band.

The result of a year with more than enough time to work on music is an album that picks up right where "Ride To Nowhere" left us. In fact, if you didn't know three-fifths of the band was new, nothing about this record would lead you to think so. That's actually a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's great to hear Inglorious hasn't deviated from what was so good about "Ride To Nowhere". On the other hand, you could say it's a bit playing to form too much that the new players are so anonymous they can't be differentiated from their predecessors.

What works so well about Inglorious' sound is how they are able to clearly be a hard rock band influenced by the old, bluesier strains of the genre, but without going so far into the blues they are playing the same ol', same ol'. There's nothing new, or particularly interesting, that can be done with a twelve bar blues anymore, so I'm relieved to hear the band focusing more on opening up their sound to a melodic sound only colored by the blues.

Plenty of these tracks, from "Messiah" to "My Misery", have the sound of arena rock blended in with their dirty roots. If you listen to this record back-to-back with Rival Sons, one of them sounds like a band that's growing a fan base that puts them in the upper tier of newer rock bands. Here's a hint; it's not Rival Sons. Inglorious has now given us back to back record filled with songs that sound huge, boasting big hooks that are perfect for a festival crowd to drunkenly "whooooo" along with. The only thing Greta Van Fleet has that Inglorious doesn't is a bad reputation.

The way the band is able to play with dynamics, to dial back and let things breathe before they kick up into high gear, makes a song like "My Misery" sound far bigger and more epic than a normal four minute track. It's one of the highlights of the album not just for the great melodic moments, but for serving as a distillation of all the classic rock influences Inglorious works with. If you want to know who this version of Inglorious is, look no further.

The one moment I'm not so keen on is "He Will Provide", where James sings about waiting for the 'Heavenly father" to arrive. I tend not to enjoy overly religious messages, but maybe you do.

Otherwise, "We Will Ride" finds Inglorious delivering another record that finds them at their best, updating the bluesy hard rock of the past for the modern age, removing the sepia-toned filters that blind us to the truth about the past. Inglorious, if they keep giving us records like this, are as good as their influences ever were.