Protest The Hero

Protest The Hero

Kezia

[5/5]It’s pronounced “Keh-zai-yah,” and, no, it isn’t Canadian for “wildly imaginative.” But you’d be forgiven for assuming as much about Protest The Hero’s ambitious debut album. Thought it was some whack chedda when Burning Star met Good Apollo (or whatever)? Well, imagine what Thrice’s The Illusion Of Safety might have sounded like as a concept album informed by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian author behind feel-good yarns like Crime And Punishment, and recorded in an abandoned hostel somewhere on the border between brilliance and madness. Then envision the whole thing narrated by a baby-faced singer, Rody Walker, with a caterwaul most post-hardcore vets would kill for. Yeah, it’s like that. And though Kezia features gang vocals, a piano interlude and handclaps (!), it’s still a technical thrill ride. Sure, PTH can’t legally sit at a bar yet, but man, they’ve set one of their own very high.
(VAGRANT) Tristan Staddon

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