Aerial Salad - ‘R.O.I’ review
Aerial Salad by Liam Maxwell
R.O.I is Aerial Salad’s first album in four years and they’ve come back with a vengeance. These proud Mancunians are throwing it all at us: political rants, burning vocals, hammering drums, and impressive guitar. The album focuses on money, more specifically the significant damage of financial inequality. After all, it wouldn’t be a punk album without a good cause to fight for and an astute observation of a world at odds with itself.
The album kicks off with ‘Rottin’ n Shakin’’. The track features a repeated riff interrupted with sudden breaks. The double drumming makes this song the perfect opening sound for the album.
Aerial Salad then begin to pick apart the world around them: first up, the out-of-touch celebrities refusing to acknowledge their privilege. ‘We all have the ‘same 24 Hours’ in a day’ is a statement that has landed several celebs and influencers in hot water. But, as the lyrics point out, “they’re not into politics and stuff. Not bothered by poverty and stuff. Oh, but they benefit from it enough”, the song’s last few lines expose the frustrating apathy of the rich and famous.
The album is rooted in the financial inequalities in the West and the issues it causes; the ability to get ahead because you started ahead; the inability to reach your goals because you weren’t born wealthy; and the debilitating obsession with money that affects Western populations. ‘Tied to Pieces of Paper’ addresses this head-on. The track is built up slowly from one guitar refrain, broken, and built again; the starting and stopping re-enacting the very issue the track exposes: a disjointed population removed from their humanity by their financial obsession. Then, a closing statement: frantic sound, burning vocals, and, finally, discordant sound for our corrupted world.
‘MDRN LVN’ swiftly moves onto classic punk contradiction: opening with an old-school rock riff that is at odds with the track’s title. The pace of the album is instantly picked up and we are hit with the kind of voice you love to hear, one with weight to it, gravelly tones that show they know from experience what they are singing about to be true. But the star of ‘MDRN LVN’ is the lyric guitar, its power demands your attention without overwhelming the song’s other components and is the cherry on top of what is sure to be a punk sensation.
We’re then hit with some classic indie-style political ranting in ‘They All Lied to Me’. Drums are crashing and cymbals are flying as you’re smacked in the face with some hard truths: the Tories lied to us all throughout lockdown. It’s the frustration we’ve all been feeling in the UK for the last four years manifested into an emotive musical breakdown.
‘Big Business’ has a slower, melodic intro that flows into drawn-out vocals and spoken word. It boasts funky beats and clever riffs that collide in one massive build-up. The drums and guitar ricochet off each other in a way that reflects the lyricist’s emotions. While ‘As The World Eats Itself Again’ similarly builds with a regular drum beat and an interjecting guitar, its strong and very apparent punk influences make these two songs the perfect complement to one another. The result of corrupted ‘big business’ is an unempathetic, disconnected world ‘eat[ing] itself again’.
We get the most obvious influences from ‘All Yer Dreamin’’ as Aerial Salad call back to the 80s and their Mancunian predecessors: Happy Mondays. It has by far the most vivid and despairing lyrics of any track on the album: “I got blood pouring out of my sockets/ Was I put here just to die?” The guitar is cleverly implemented as punctuation: interjected purposefully to underline the lyrics. ‘All Yer Dreamin’’ is a personal favourite from the album, it has a well-structured, creative sound that is clearly inspired without being derivative and is catchy without being dull.
‘Capo2’ is where Aerial Salad demonstrate their range, a slow track throughout, it fills out the album’s sound like a palette cleanser. The distant, 90s microphone reminds us of the Arctic Monkeys and the Stone Roses all at once. We are shown there is more to the band than the punk rage they do so expertly, there is contemplation and an almost daydream-like, romantic edge to them with a lamenting, musing quality to the reverberated guitar.
‘R.O.I’ closes with ‘Telekon 5’ and a return to trance-like playing. The sound builds and falls, the drawn-out guitar fills out the sound in the background and the crisp vocals add a crucial texture to the track. The song fizzles into harsh, discomforting distorted noise to punctuate the end of the album and land Aerial Salad on a list of those to watch; they are prime candidates to become yet another in a long line of Manchester’s best.
R.O.I from Aerial Salad is out now via Venn Records and is available on all good streaming platforms.
