Review: James Kennedy – ‘Make Anger Great Again’
UK based hard-rocker James Kennedy’s Make Anger Great Again is a powerful call to arms made even more relevant by the carnival of chaos that 2020 has been.
By Daniel Lückhoff-Wessels
Published Monday, 10 August 2020 08:01
Recorded just before the world took a break, the album was initially written as a reaction to Donald Trump’s tyranny and the Brexit mess. However, the current mood worldwide, as ideologies clash with sometimes tragic consequences, makes Make Anger Great Again that much more impactful, the Trump-inspired title summing up the theme of the album.
'The Power', which gets the party started, opens with a cold, calculating, determined anger before exploding into a sometimes pissed off, sometimes sinister warning shot to the elite and a rallying cry to the masses, its ever-changing temperament adding weight to its menace.
'Outragers', combines crunching power chords with Josh Homme-esque vocals to warn of "thought police" looking to control all inter-personal communication while the high-intensity 'Mind Revolution' reminds us that there’s more to life than obedience.
There are moments where Make Anger Great Again goes for a different approach. 'Solace in Sickness' starts off with a sense of enigmatic malice before exploding into a power-ballad but still maintaining its suspense. 'Primal' perhaps a bit of an obvious title, takes a more tribal road to revolution, the drums and bass joining together to get a hypnotic beat going before the choruses burst into focused revolution.
With the smell of revolution in the air, James Kennedy’s Make Anger Great Again is the perfect soundtrack for a potentially cataclysmic period of human history.