PVRIS – All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell – 25/08/17
10/10
When your debut album turns heads all over the world, builds an incredible fan base rapidly, and finds you supporting acts as big as 30 Seconds To Mars, Muse & Bring Me The Horizon, writing your second full length album is an incredibly difficult task with such huge pressure to deliver. For PVRIS, this doesn’t seem to be as daunting a task as it first looked. Front woman Lynn Gunn and co. are bursting with creativity, and with a clear direction on their sound and style as a band, PVRIS’ second album is exactly what they needed to bring to the table to prove their worth with confidence.
‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ (10) is a defining album for PVRIS as it proves to the world they have more in them than to ride their debut album dry. After re releases of their debut album ‘White Noise’, it seemed as though a second album was never going to arrive. The sudden release of lead single and album opener ‘Heaven’ from AWKOHAWNOH earlier this year was the perfect indicator of style for the Massachusetts trio’s second full length. With its huge chorus, thudding drums and bellowing vocals, it’s everything we wanted to hear from PVRIS.
Fortunately, AWKOHAWNOH follows suit to the lead single as you will already know from the pre-released songs ‘Half’, ‘What’s Wrong’, and ‘Winter’, however the remainder of the album still exceeded our expectations as these tracks are only a teaser of what’s packed into this 10 track album. The first of the new tracks is ‘Anyone Else’, which eases us into the song in a much more reserved manner to the previous tracks with a steady verse building up with intensity throughout the song. A trademark PVRIS breakdown has a ghostly synth and the echo of the Lynn shouting ‘I don’t belong to anyone else’ in the distance, before an abrupt end to the song finishes with the trickling sound of a harp to guide us into the recent single ‘What’s Wrong’.
‘Walk Alone’ opens with some delicate vocals from Lynn before the trademark tribal like drums pick up the pace, as the track layers up with more synth, clean guitars, and harp as previous for another strong track on the album. ‘Same Soul’ follows closely and comfortably with its tranquil verse and infectious chorus.
Without doubt, our favourite track on the album has to be ‘No Mercy’. It’s delivered with purpose from the frontwoman with an incredibly powerful vocal performance in its furious chorus, ringing similarities to ‘Let Them In’ from their debut album ‘White Noise’. It’s sure to be a fan favourite, and trust us when we say it’s going to sound even better live as it does on the album. Surely it will be included in the set list when PVRIS return in the fall.
In comparison ‘Separate’ feels more like an album filler. It lacks the flare that ‘No Mercy’ has, however it does bring some welcome diversity to the album in it’s own right with its chilling relaxed pace throughout, to slow the album down toward the final track ‘Nola 1’ closing the album with some calmness and tranquility.
In conclusion, ‘AWKOHAWNOH’ has all the ingredients to be the perfect album. With plenty of flare, character, creativity, and a little diversity, PVRIS have crafted a fantastic second album. It may have taken some time to arrive, but ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ has certainly been well worth the wait.
Upcoming live dates:
- 26 August: Reading Festival, Reading (tickets)
- 27 August: Leeds Festival, Leeds (tickets)
- 22 November: O2 Academy, Bristol (sold out)
- 23 November: O2 Academy, Birmingham (tickets)
- 24 November: Academy, Dublin (sold out)
- 25 November: Mandela Hall, Belfast (sold out)
- 27 November: O2 Academy, Glasgow (tickets)
- 28 November: O2 Apollo, Manchester (tickets)
- 30 November: O2 Brixton Academy, London (tickets)
