Photo by Nolan Knight

Is it 2014 all over again or is it just that the “Fuck Ian Cohen” revival in now in full swing, because my man, how in the year of the Gun 2025 do you give the transcendent post-hardcore band’s emotively grown up sophomore effort a measly 6.1 with an embarrassingly rude review that completely misses the mark on its evolution due to the writer not being able to tell his head from his ass apart since he’s too busy paying attention to what Turnstile is doing?

The album is out in the wild for a few days now, which these pages implore you to form your own opinion on, but right before it dropped, the much more cooler of the Ians of this world and his good company of alternative pit shifters gave us the standout, “God Owes Me Money”. This is Militarie Gun in their updated pocket: a well-churned melodic hardcore anthem converging with burning synth-pop that recalls Bright Eyes’ low key classic Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. “Say the worst thing that jumps to mind / Does it feel better to be so unkind?,” Shelton ponders his place in the world. “Don’t know why I was left outside / God owes me money, I’ll get it in time.” You can pick your lyrical poison throughout — it all hits a little different today — but so does Militarie Gun all of the goddamn time.

Militarie Gun’s God Save The Gun is out now on Loma Vista Recordings.