Warren Zeiders Hits the Gas on No Brakes, but Knows When to Slow Down
Review by Lauren Page | @LiveWithLP
From 717 Tapes to Pretty Little Poison, Warren Zeiders has given us plenty of songs I’d struggle to skip. Then Relapse, Lies & Betrayal came along and pushed his sound further. So when he announced No Brakes, I had one question: where does Warren go from here?
The answer is a 12-track album that gives his rockier side plenty of room while remembering that his voice can do just as much damage when everything else quietens down. Fans had already been treated to Overrated with British country artist Bellah Mae, Looks Good On You and Drinking Game, but there’s a lot more to get stuck into here.
Ruin a Good Thing opens the record with the Warren sound we know and love. His voice has that grit to it straight away, and if you’ve followed him since the Relapse era, you’ll feel right at home.
It’s a strong opener, especially knowing how personal the song is to him. When I spoke to Warren ahead of the release, he told me how much he’d opened up while writing it with people he’d only just met. You can hear that vulnerability underneath the bigger sound.
I was particularly excited for the title track. If you’re calling your album No Brakes, that song has quite a job to do, doesn’t it? Warren could easily have gone for the loudest, fastest track on the record. Instead, it begins with a more stripped-back feel and builds into something that I reckon could stop a room in its tracks live. It’s beautiful, and one of the first moments that shows this album has more range than its title might suggest.
Overrated brings Bellah Mae into the mix, and their voices work so well together. She’ll be joining Warren on his UK tour, too, so hearing this one live feels like a very real possibility. Glasgow, I hope you’re warming up.
You Turn and Days of My Life ease the pace back down. The latter gives Warren’s vocal plenty of space, although this is also where I found myself wanting a bit more contrast between tracks. I love a slower Warren Zeiders song, but hearing a few close together makes the album settle when you’re expecting it to keep moving.
Looks Good On You pulls me straight back in. The rasp in his voice is an absolute treat here, and it’s one of those performances where you believe every word he’s singing. My Eyes then heads towards a brighter, more pop-leaning country sound. Give me a car, an open road and some summer sunshine, and I’ll have that one turned all the way up.
Then we get to Drinking Game. Fans have already gone wild for it online, and I can only imagine what’s going to happen when Warren plays it across Europe over the coming weeks. Having seen how crowds respond to him, I suspect they’ll be pretty feral. His word for UK audiences, by the way, not mine.
Bittersweet is where the rockier Warren really comes out to play, and I won’t pretend I’m unbiased: this is one of my favourite sides of him. It has the bite I was hoping to hear on No Brakes and gives the latter half of the album a welcome jolt.
But my favourite track? Souvenirs.
When I interviewed Warren, he picked it as one fans might connect with and said it was a song to turn right up. He was right. The imagery in the lyrics is so clear, the melody gets hold of you, and I’d happily take his advice and put it on at full volume.
Mine slows things down again, but Warren’s vocal is so strong that I don’t mind one bit. For me, it’s his best performance on the album. Closing track Find One is quieter still, ending the record on a thoughtful note after all the grit, heartbreak and bigger choruses that came before it.
A few of the slower songs do start to blur together, and I would have loved another Bittersweet thrown into the mix. But No Brakes delivers some brilliant new tracks without losing the voice and storytelling that made Warren Zeiders so exciting in the first place.
Now I need to hear Souvenirs, Bittersweet and Drinking Game live. October 11 in Glasgow cannot come quickly enough.
No Brakes by Warren Zeiders is out now.