Album Review: Today Is The Day - Never Give In
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Nashville noise-mongers, Today Is the Day have been led by the ever-present Steve Austin since their inception in 1992. Contemporaries of Helmet, Unsane and (the) Melvins, Austin’s project had seen him releasing a string of influential albums back in the day, including their Supernova debut, Temple of the Morning Star and 1999’s In the Eyes of God, which featured Brann Drailor on drums and Bill Kelliher on bass, who you might recall from being active members of Mastodon to this day.
Their post-millennial material had been less regular, but still as effective, with 2020’s No Good to Anyone getting positive reviews and even ending up on my End of the Year Top Ten. However, No Good to Anyone was released just before the world closed down, leaving Today Is the Day having to abandon the tour mid-trek.
As with many creators, Steve found himself isolated and unable to maintain a balance in his mental health. Leading to a resurrection of his label, SuperNova Records, and the kernel of a double-album concept in which the loathing and despair he felt over the ongoing situation could be channelled and put into some sort of order.
New record, Never Give In, is Austin’s first part of the healing, with part two scheduled for next year.
Conceptually bleak, this twelfth album is a soul laid bare, a confession that for all we strive to be individuals, the hands of fate sometimes have other plans. Divide and Conquer opens with fat guitars cranking out a big riff, built on solid chugs and Austin’s drawling vocals, it toys with haunting psychedelics. International Psychological Warfare is unsettling and dissonant, packed with a punk vibe and downbeat narration, it’s a further delve into the album’s fractured mental state. The climatic mantra of “Feeling so low, I can’t feel it any longer…” sounds like Steve manifesting his inner-Neil Young.
The title track blends gentle waves and single note guitar picking with furious screams during the chorus, a far-switch from the spoken word delivery of the verses. The Choice is Yours is the record’s most straightforward tune, six-minutes of driving alternative rock, chunky guitars and solid percussion, with the closing The Cleaning resisting the urge to end the album with a crescendo, choosing instead to play it slow and introspective, leaving this story on a cliff-hanger, awaiting the second part for any resolution.
Today Is the Day’s reputation would not allow them not to experiment, and the electronic elements that are so prevalent on I Got Nothin’ can also be heard on the edgy, ominous Psychic Wound, which at times plays like the final moments of the grip on reality.
There are swinging, Lounge-Lizard vibes amid the punky barks of Secret Police and the funky basslines of Pain and Frustration, as the band heap their collective disgust at the unprecedented government over-reach of the pandemic era, focused into their instruments and recorded for posterity and the whole world to hear.
As with any Today Is the Day record, Never Give In reveals itself slowly, with the first couple of listens merely trying to establish the rules. When you have unlocked the code, it’s a righteously angry album, maybe not musically, but there won’t be many more-aggrieved collections out this year.
