AWOLNATION singer/songwriter Aaron Bruno cobbles together modern-rock tunes that are candy pop, hard as nails and cathedral-huge. Aggro refrains choke on wafting choruses and kitchen-sink post-Beck song suites, but somehow it still all feels right. At once wading-pool shallow and mercilessly affecting, the quintet caulks the fault line separating a guilty pleasure from a cultivated muso obsession. Last year’s Megalithic Symphony suggested that the band could do anything, so expect them to keep break-dancing atop your notions of what popular music should be able to accomplish.
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2012.