Rock is fine for when you want something big and bombastic. Pop music is great when it is a more immediate and infectious sound you are looking for. What is excellent about Anthem, the second album from Stephen Kohler, is that it walks a sweet spot between those two, often opposing, camps. But even more clever is that he excels at picking only the best aspects of those genres, leaving rocks bombast and pop shallowness way behind, and taking only the good stuff.
“One Way Game,” the lead single, tells you everything you need to know, a grooving slice of rock and roll but one with the cool contagion of the pop world woven through its DNA. It is big and anthemic (pun intended) when it wants to be, yet never losing sight of the fact that this is music for the masses and employing a lightness of touch that will carry everyone along with it – rock fans, pop pickers, indie kids, chart hounds, discerning music fans. And everyone in between.
Arrayed around it are incredible, indie-pop songs such as “Firefly,” totally modern and of the here-and-now but also shimmering with a late-era McCartney penned Beatle’s ballad, and the gorgeous and subtle folky-pop finesse of “Killing You.”
Rock gives you an energetic boost, pop is fun and infectious, and indie is fashion-driven and of the moment. When you want to find all of that in the same place, you turn to Stephen Kohler.
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