They could have given Guns N’ Roses a run for their money, if they’d only waited a couple more years. Because if they had, then Otherness, Alexisonfire’s fifth full-length, would have beaten the lengthy 15-year gap between GN’R’s 1993 record, their The Spaghetti Incident? covers album, and 2008’s return Chinese Democracy. As it happens, Otherness comes just over 12 years after its predecessor, 2009’s Old Crows/Young Cardinals. Thankfully – and unlike The Spaghetti Incident? – this record is very much worth the wait. It opens with the scuzzy and insistent riff of Committed To The Con, a hypnotically propulsive lick that soon gives way to a barrage of vocals courtesy of George Pettit, Wade MacNeil and Dallas Green. Moody and uncomfortable, it’s a definite ...