Hundred Reasons - Glorious Sunset - album review

By Anya Baxter.

Fifteen years since their last studio album, Aldershot's own Hundred Reasons return with the endlessly emotive Glorious Sunset.

Press photo sourced externally.

Staying true to their post hardcore, alternative sound, Hundred Reasons have produced an album overflowing with passion, early 2000s emo nostalgia and songs that beg to be played in a live setting. In celebration of the release, the band are embarking on a tour with fellow post-punk band Hell is for Heroes, as well as alt rock band My Vitriol.

With a career spanning 24 years, Hundred Reasons have become veterans of the genre, first finding success with the release of their chart featured debut album.

The title track "Glorious Sunset" was presented as the first single, and carries a bittersweet meaning. In a recent interview with NME, lead singer Colin Doran elaborated "It became a metaphor for us saying, 'We're potentially done now, but we're not going to think about it'". This introspective and honest look at their career is combined with the sadness of the passing of Doran's mum, "There was this release and relief because she'd suffered a lot and was in pain for such a long time." Doran also stated that a sense of both sadness and anger from this loss resulted in a selection of contrasting songs on the record.

A band dedicated to their craft, Hundred Reasons present a more mature version of their original energetic sound, reflecting on themselves as people, and the events that have formed their lives since the indie and emo scene passed seemingly quickly. However not without its impact on today's musicians, with Bring Me The Horizon lead singer Oli Sykes revealing Hundred Reasons were a band he saw "at least 46 times" in his youth.

Blending seamlessly into the recent revivals of many post punk favourites, Glorious Sunset is a cinematic journey through sentimentality, loss and growing up. Doran's voice glides through these emotional topics, accompanied by Larry Hibbitt delivering refreshing riffs on guitar, Andy Bews providing the pulsing heartbeat on drums, and Andy Gilmour tying the ensemble together on bass.

Fans of Hundred Reasons from the mid 00s, who have themselves grown up, will find meaning they can relate to hidden within the new record, which simultaneously works to expertly provide energy and excitement to attract new listeners to the band. Whether this 2023 album is the band's very own 'glorious sunset' or not, it is a certainty the record will be a success, and sets an example for how a reunion album should be made.