Album Review: Western Settings – Another Year

San Diego punks Western Settings are simultaneously an unashamedly nostalgic and yet progressive and modern listen. Another Year stretches the ‘punk’ skin pretty thin, as this album is stuffed full of huge powerpop songs. But powerpop with a determinedly quirky methodology that can only be by design – odd chord progressions and timing changes are thrown in to disrupt any comfortable feeling you might have been lulled into. That’s the seasoning that lifts this album above the introspective vein of noughties punk that it harks back to. Another Year is definitely a widescreen production, full of air and space. No track more so than the massive ballad Better. This album has been a long time in the making too, following up 2016’s acclaimed debut full-length Old Pain and ...