Expressive Lancaster rockers Massive Wagons open new chapter with Earth To Grace, an album that rocks and emotes in near perfect harmony.
They say honesty is the best policy, and it’s certainly worked for Massive Wagons. The band’s heart-on-sleeve realism is the thing that helped put their last two albums, 2020’s House Of Noise and 2022’s Triggered!, into the UK Top 10. There’s been no contrivance or media scrum – it’s all been done by connecting with actual, real people. Given that Earth To Grace is their most relatable set of songs to date, it’d be folly to predict anything other than continued ascent for these genuine working class heroes.
A big step has been recruiting producer Matt O’Grady (Architects, Don Broco) who has helped Wagons perfect what they were doing anyway – writing about real situations in a way that truly chimes with the human experience. It still rocks like a pissed mastodon when it needs to – metallic opener Sleep Forever and rapid-fire closer Rabbit Hole being two examples – but it mostly does so with hand on heart.
The Good Die Young is a glorious salute to making the most of life, and features a not remotely tokenistic guest slot from Hundred Reasons’ Colin Doran – a man who always sings as if his family’s life depends on it. The Shaun Hodson-directed video was shot at the Ashton Memorial in the band’s Lancaster hometown, an iconic structure visible for miles from the M6. It’s these touches – loyalty, home, the desire to include and understand each other, that makes Massive Wagons songs sing out for miles around. Baz Mills, an enjoyably eccentric but notably human frontman, sounds and looks like nobody else in rock, and his caring tones illuminate Night Skies, a song about depression that doesn’t preach but simply asks you to look and think.
Elsewhere, you can feel where producer and band have gelled, softening spikes, making the good bits better, and finding the right backdrops for Mills’ quasi-comic candor. After a few plays you’ll be hoping Earth To Grace puts these deserving grafters back where they belong: at the top of the UK charts.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: The Struts, You Me At Six, Foo Fighters
Earth To Grace is released on November 8 via Earache. The band tour the UK from November 22, where they'll be working with men's suicide prevention charity Andy's Man Club at each gig. Visit Andysmanclub.co.uk for more info about their work.
