Rating: ***
Hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah, Westward has a new album called "The Empire of Deception" dropping on October 14th of this year and have released a teaser single entitled "The Last Stand" to tide us over in the meantime.
I was a big fan of their debut album "The Deadly Rapture of Space" so I was eager to have a listen to the latest track. Can the so-called Cowboy Space Rockers deliver the goods once again? Let's see...or listen. Yeah. Let's listen.
Listen to "The Last Stand" below:
The tune starts with a bouncy little modern jazz riff before we jump into the verse. Mid-tempo until we get to a fairly anthemic chorus that immediately put me in mind to Muse. Actually, it sounds like Muse a lot. I'm a little surprised that no one told them "Dudes, this sounds a lot like Uprising..." Either way, it doesn't detract from it being a solid tune and a good enough first single to make the listener want to sample some more. Well-sung and well-played, this little ditty will quench the thirst of alterna-rockers just fine, I suspect.
In spite of being obviously influenced and lacking originality, "The Last Stand" is a good song by a good band. It's commercial sounding enough to get radio airplay, but indie sounding enough to stay true to their base. I look forward to checking out the entire album come October.
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