On Fri., Feb 2, Awolnation came out with their third studio album, Here Comes the Runts, with a bass-heavy alternative sound and a change from the techno sound of their past albums. A week after the album was released, they started their continental tour, starting off in Toronto and playing on Valentine’s Day at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.

This album definitely fits into the alternative pop-rock category, with the band abandoning their stranglehold on the synth pop techno market. The band’s front man, Aaron Bruno, discussed introducing more authentic instruments into the band’s sound back in 2015, saying that people were getting sick of the processed robotic sound of modern alternative, and continuing that style would be beating a dead horse. This new album achieves that goal successfully. While retaining that high-pitched, synthetic sound, the album allows listeners to recognize the music is played on real guitars. It’s like traditional rock but with the satisfying bass drop of a techno song.

The major radio hit off this album is “Passion,” which sounds a good deal like Awolnation’s breakthrough hit, “Sail.” Audiences seem to like one type of  song from the band, but radio stations haven’t given much of a chance to the rest of the album, which has a lot of verses featuring nothing but an acoustic guitar and easy listening vibes. A few of the songs in particular, like “Handyman,” have a summer drive feel, and are something to listen to if you’re ever on a solo trip downtown this spring.

Other songs however, like “Cannonball,” give off a classic 2008 pop-punk vibe.  It won’t force you out of your seat to dance, but it’s difficult to resist nodding along and tapping your foot to the deep bass line. The presence of real instruments is very much welcome to the alternative scene, as it has been absent for a while. Heavy, simple bass lines are present in a good amount of the songs, giving Bruno the chance to relive his past with grunge music. It’s an interesting mix: the grunge guitar sound of the 90’s and the high pitched vocals of an 80’s glam band paired with the excessive harmonies of 60’s rock. This combo doesn’t sound like it should work, but somehow Awolnation mixes these different sounds perfectly.

No matter what genre you’re into, if you listen through the album in it’s entirety (available on Spotify), you’re bound to find at least one or two songs you’ll love. The album in its totality is not super cohesive, and sounds like demos from the past and present just thrown together to make an album. It’s hard to picture someone enjoying every single song because they’re all so different. This is good for Apple music users, but for people who enjoy still listening to CDs or vinyls, this fact is not welcome. No one these days really wants to buy a physical album unless they like all of the songs, and this album just isn’t cohesive enough for a general audience to like all of the songs together.

In general, this album is pretty good. I don’t think I’ll be buying any songs from iTunes, but I’ll probably bop my head along if a song happens to pop up on the radio. I definitely recommend checking the album out on Spotify if you’re curious or looking for a new genre to get into, since this album has several genres to choose from. I give it a 6.5/10.