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Oh to be young, free, and angry. Such is the mood and tone of The Hotel Year's album It Never Goes Out. The album, as a whole is just so young, brimming with angst. Which has it attributes and hindrances. I had a visual pop into my mind when I was listening to this album. Small town kids in the middle of the night, bored and riled up, hop in the back of the truck and head down to an abandoned factory to throw stones through the broken windows. That sense of being held down, limited, with nothing to do. The adults and the school are against the youth and they want to break out and be free, that feeling. That is the whole message and tone of the album.

Although that sounds like simplistic and “been done before”, The Hotel Year has one thing going for it that their peers don't. They see the bigger picture. It Never Goes Out has some flavors of Rise Against and 30 Seconds to Mars where The Hotel Year are clearly thinking big, expressing rage at the current social climate and making an effort to be epic. There is also some 2000's era teen pop/punk/indie sounds spliced in, sounds like Simple Plan, Yellow Card, and Good Charlotte. The listener can definitely tell the band is heavily influenced by these latter bands and it shows in The Hotel Year's first outing.

There are some marks against It Never Goes Out, luckily the issues just take some time and wisdom, and I can tell that the guys just need some time to grow. For one, the album sounds a little too much like their influences, which makes the album sound a bit indistinct. For a first studio album, that can happen, which is fine because the band has potential and they can fix that. Also, the big faux paux of It Never Goes Out is the use of profanity. You will not a find a person who is a bigger fan of profanity than me, that aside, the use of explicit language in this album feels out of place. The album should be listened to by young people because the content of the lyrics really encapsulates youth, the use of profanity is unnecessary to describe that and sounds a bit clumsy.

Now, for the actual tracks of the album. The tone of angst and unrest shines brightly in “Our Life Would Make A Sad, Boring Movie”, a fantastic first track that stands out the most in the album. The band sounds tight and socially conscious. The same shows in “Vacancy”, the listener can very easily tell that the band is comprised of boys who are turning into men, they are becoming adults and looking at the world, seeing the flaws and are angry what they are witnessing. When the album shifts gears into “Lonely Hearts Club” and “An Ode to the Nite Ratz Club”, the songs are more reflective of the youth the band just left, the listener can tell how fresh the memories still are and how they are not yet men, still holding onto childhood.

When we get to “Weathered” and beyond to the end of the album, the band plays with a wide variety of instrumentation and the album, as a whole, progresses away from strict pop/punk and mixes the indie flair that wasn't really present in the beginning of It Never Goes Out. “Weathered” has a harmonica thrown into the mix, “I'm Gone” has more vocal harmonizing and strives for a more epic sound. The final tracks end the album with a good solid bang and punch.

To wrap up, The Hotel Year is a good band, but not a great band. The potential for greatness is there. There is a good chance that with hard work they could gain some commercial success but there is a lot of work to be done for sure. The album It Never Goes Out has an interesting mix of youth and the beginnings of maturity. They experiment and are willing to grow, solid lyric writing skills will help the band a lot in the future. My final word is listen to this album and appreciate it, just know that they will be back with something bigger and better, because The Hotel Year will not be a one note band.

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