Album Review — Unruly Child

Unruly Child — Our Glass House

Just about every year a few albums sneak through without me knowing about them. Much of the time, they are albums that are released late in the year that get missed. 2020 was no different. So one of the first records to review in 2021 is a late 2020 release.

Unruly Child has an interesting history. The band released their debut album in 1992 and then disbanded. Marcie Free went solo and the band reformed from 1998–2002 with Kelly Hansen (Foreigner) and Ricky Phillips (Styx).

After two more releases, the band took a break until 2010 when the band reformed with the original members. Since reforming, the band has now released five records including “Our Glass House” which was released in December.

The band’s sound is very melodic and is fairly similar to their 2019 release “Big Blue World”. At times, some of the songs can get a little “prog-y” as the majority of track check in at over five minutes.

There are some good tracks here. The opening song, “Poison Ivy”, finds the band at their best. I really like the guitar hooks on this record and we get one that runs through the majority of “Poison Ivy”.

The title track has a little of that prog-y feel to it at the start but it’s mostly quite melodic and enjoyable.

“Underwater” is another track that features one of those guitar hooks. It has that updated 80s sound to it that reminds me of recent bands like FM and Waiting For Monday.

The album closes out with two older tracks that are redone. I’m not familiar with the original versions but they are both decent tracks.

This is one of those albums that I like but I’m not sure I’ll be listening to it much moving forward. I review 50 or so records a year and have thousands of albums in my collection. In order to stand out, there has to be something to grab me. The songs are decent and the performances are good, I’m just not finding anything that really grabs me.

I am sure fans of the band will be happy with “Our Glass House”. It’s a solid melodic record. For me, it’s just missing that “it” factor.

85 out of 100

Track Listing

1 Poison Ivy *
2 Say What You Want
3 Our Glass House *
4 Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead
5 Talked You Out Of Loving Me
6 Underwater *
7 Catch Up To Yesterday
8 Freedom Is A Fight
9 The Wooden Monster
10 Here To Stay *
11 To Be Your Everything 2020
12 Let’s Talk About Love 2020

*Best Songs