Outrage! Is Now

Outrage! Is Now is a deeply satisfying record to listen to, and one that the band seem to have had fun making. It’s sarcastic, witty, and the best thing they’ve produced so far.

This one's a reduction of their dense, danceable punk rock into two main groups: lairy and louche. [9 Sep 2017, p.52]

Death From Above might have pulled their brand of wreckage rock even further towards the dance floor with this, yet it still manages to further the rawness and execution they’ve become so mythical for. Most of all they feel like a band without any limits here.

While The Physical World was a stunning comeback, this album cements Death from Above's place as one of the great rock bands of their era. It's a vital document to wave in front of anyone who says rock is dead, because one listen to any DFA song is enough to prove that argument DOA.

With Outrage! Is Now, Death From Above join the rare breed of artists who are able to capitalize on their maturity without betraying the spirit of their youth.

Hiring QOTSA producer Eric Valentine has given their bluesy bluster a hint of Josh Homme’s desert Bowie sleaze on tracks like Never Swim Alone, Statues, Caught Up and Moonlight. ... There’s still space for the weird bits, though.

The arrangements are much tighter, the lyrics feel fleshed out in a time where we can't help but be cynical of humans, and overall what you get from Sebastien Grainger and Jesse Keeler is a buzzy spin on the rock genre that feels like two dudes just chilling while the apocalypse hits and everyone's running around with their heads on fire.

Grainger and Keeler are now more than six years into their reunion, but it’s still hard to listen to these songs without making knee-jerk comparisons to their early work (which, let’s face it, offered more thrills). That being said, Outrage! Is Now shows that they’ve shifted into a new phase of their career – one in which they’ve honed their craft and matured into seasoned pros.

A supercharged, hook-heavy pop-metal attack that impresses but rarely convinces. [Oct 2017, p.98]

Outrage! Is Now makes a convincing fist of them not sounding like a band pushing 40. [Oct 2017, p.100]

This apparent quest for new sounds produced Death from Above’s belated sophomore slump, a collection of songs that finds the duo pulled in directions that play against their strengths and makes them sound, for the first time, a little dull.

The duo is only revisiting what made Death From Above faves 13 years ago without realizing how poorly it has aged. [No. 146, p.55]

Outrage! Is Now is unequivocally uninspired, shelving almost all of the rawness that put the Toronto doublet on the map thirteen years ago. It’s lyrically apathetic, and Jesse F. Keeler’s basslines have lost all of their punishing nature.

The shallow cynicism and apathy that animates so many of its songs are under-interrogated by its writers, instead finding form as a pessimist’s non-committal, inconclusive pouting.