Where Life Under the Gun felt like music made for the end of the world—a soundtrack to fading sunlight, quiet resignation, and the slow acceptance of collapse—God Save the Gun feels like what comes after the world actually ends. It’s the sound of digging through the wreckage, of relearning how to move, of figuring out how to live again when the ground beneath you no longer resembles anything familiar. If the last record found a strange peace in surrendering to the inevitable, this one finds momentum despite it. The tension hasn’t vanished; it’s simply learned how to dance.
The album opens with “Pt. II,” a short, warped fragment of distortion that feels like a transmission from a world already half gone. The melancholy lingers, but it’s distorted and dreamlike, as if the sadness itself is already fading into memory. Then “B A D I D E A” enters like a sudden jolt of electricity—punk-leaning drums in the distance, a deep, blown-out bassline that swallows the mix, and a jagged wall of distortion that somehow feels strangely joyful. It’s a restart, a pulse, a sign that this time Militarie Gun aren’t content to sit in the haze. They’re pushing against it, and in that push, the resignation of Life Under the Gun curdles into resistance.
From the beginning, God Save the Gun feels more purposeful and kinetic than its predecessor. Whereas the earlier album often lingered in reflective stillness—beautiful, but occasionally too contained—this new record never stops moving. The guitars shimmer and snarl at the edges, sometimes jangly, sometimes caustic, always restless. The drums feel more forceful, more confident. The bass, once kept safely in the background, has become a living, breathing character. Songs like “Fill Me With Paint” and “Throw Me Away” radiate with a distinctly 90s Britpop energy, evoking a heavier, bleaker version of Oasis or Blur as they drift through fuzzed-out chords and reverb-soaked melodies. It’s a familiar sound refracted through Militarie Gun’s punk sensibility—catchy and dreamy, but bruised around the edges.
Ian Shelton’s vocals have taken on a new clarity as well. There’s more grit, more presence, more bite in the way he sings—not just shouting, but shaping the emotional arc of each track. If the last album centered on accepting the end, this one is about navigating the aftermath, and his voice carries the weight of that shift. Nowhere is this clearer than on “God Owes Me Money” and “Daydream.” The former sounds like a cosmic argument set to music, its synth-heavy layers and distorted low-end giving it a strange, divine, almost otherworldly glow. “Daydream,” in contrast, is hollow and nostalgic, channeling the aching simplicity of 90s college rock while sifting through the emptiness that follows emotional burnout.
Production-wise, God Save the Gun represents an evolution. While Life Under the Gun held everything in a careful balance—clean, measured, safely mixed—this record lets the imperfections breathe. The distortion is allowed to fray at the edges. The bass growls with more aggression. The percussion occasionally spills out of its lane. The whole album feels warmer, more human, as if it’s less concerned with control and more concerned with capturing a moment before it slips away. It’s messy in the way that survival is messy—scraped knees, dirty hands, no clean lines.
The songwriting hits harder too. Militarie Gun have always had hooks, but on this record they feel more lived-in, more emotionally anchored. They no longer work as fleeting earworms but as moods that linger long after the track ends. “Maybe I’ll Burn My Life Down” burns with shouting urgency, while “Kick” ends with an eerie, dissolving outro that melts into static. “Laugh At Me” offers a burst of bright acoustic optimism, the kind of song that feels tailor-made for the montage sequence of a coming-of-age film. Even the darker moments have sharpened: “I Won’t Murder Your Friend” is one of the bleakest entries in their catalog, a slow emotional collapse driven by buzzing bass, depressive textures, and vocals that sound frayed at the seams. It pulls you down gently but relentlessly, a reminder that even in the band’s most expansive moments, their emotional core remains unfiltered.
Ian Shelton’s voice is the unifying thread, carrying a raw humanity that feels more vulnerable and weathered than before. His rasp, his shouts, his quieter deliveries—they all sound like someone who’s seen the apocalypse, shaken hands with it, and decided to keep singing anyway. Lyrically, he’s digging deeper than ever, shifting from songs about surrender to songs about surviving the surrender. There’s a sense of aftermath in every line, a recognition that life goes on even when you’re not quite sure how to follow it.
By the time the title track, “God Save the Gun,” emerges near the end of the record, everything feels both final and unexpectedly free. Thick bass, washed-out guitars, and softly swirling synths come together like static prayers rising from the rubble. It feels like an ending, but one that acknowledges the possibility of what comes next. If Life Under the Gun was the slow sunset before the world slips into darkness, God Save the Gun is the twilight that follows—strange, beautiful, dimly glowing with new possibility.
In the end, this album doesn’t merely continue Militarie Gun’s story—it reframes it. The band has shifted from watching the world burn to dancing in its ashes, louder, riskier, and more alive than before. Life Under the Gun felt like acceptance. God Save the Gun feels like resurrection. And in that resurrection, Militarie Gun prove that even after everything crumbles, there’s still noise to make—noise that can be beautiful, cathartic, and defiantly alive.
NOTABLE TRACKS:
B A D I D E A
God Owes Me Money
I Won’t Murder Your Friend
God Save The Gun