Militarie Gun - God Save The Gun

Four songs proper into Militarie Gun’s second record, ‘God Owes Me Money’ ends with a skipping vocal; “I’m addicted to getting lit,” it repeats with notable resignation, before making way for the devastating ‘Daydream’, a palpable realisation by frontman Ian Shelton. It’s one of more than its fair share of arresting moments on ‘God Save The Gun’, an overt retelling of Ian’s downward spiral into alcohol addiction, ongoing depression, and outright chaos. It’s also the ellipsis to the band’s own turbulence, having brought three new members into the fold since the release of 2023’s scene-setting ‘Life Under The Gun’. The difference is now that Ian is the protagonist of his own story, no longer looking outward at family and friends dealing with the same dependency.


Where others may opt to approach that subject matter through subtle metaphor, this album is split crudely into three unmistakable parts: hedonism, realisation and processing. Each uses the band’s unabashed rock to full effect, but by being unafraid to show vulnerability, pulls things back with sniper precision. While the pop-punk adjacent ‘Laugh At Me’ presents Ian at his most broken, there’s a clever power in its position as the most upbeat melody on the record. That considered tongue-in-cheek humour shines bright on the stunning new-wave emo inspired lead single ‘Thought you Were Waving’. “I thought you were waving,” he sings, “turns out you were drowning.” But it’s the pivotal ‘I Won’t Murder Your Friend’ that takes the deepest of depression on head-first, purposefully written to de-glorify suicide in its unfiltered lyrics. The hard-fought glimmers of hope in the pain (“I guess I’ll stay,” he concludes, breaking into tears) prove the very point of the record, in its openness as brutally difficult as it is cathartic.