Each day of December this year, I’m highlighting one of my favourite albums of 2024. Counting down the list, we start with #31 on December 1st and go all the way down until we’ve reached #1 on December 31st. Today, #22 on my Album of the Year list: Death Lens – ‘Cold World’.

The fact that I haven’t seen Death Lens perform live this year is quite impressive. This band literally played half the festivals I went to in 2024. Due to various circumstances, I miraculously missed all these shows. I figured the least I could do is highlight their fourth album ‘Cold World’ during my December special.

My first few introductions to Death Lens, probably somewhere late 2023, were all I needed to understand where this band is heading. Topics like self-love, boring 9-to-5 lifestyles, politics, and feeling stressed out are what makes the Sum 41-inspired ‘Cold World’ quite a run-of-the-mill punk rock album. There’s a couple of standouts: ‘Vacant’, ‘Memory Hotline’, ‘Not Enough’, and especially title track ‘Cold World’ are solid tracks but the predictability makes most other songs sound a little dull after a while. Especially once the mandatory ballad ‘Lo Que Será’ and equally as uninspiring ‘Bruised’ have set foot on the stage, this album starts feeling like a party punk band like Dune Rats trying to make an album full of emo songs. ‘Cold World’ certainly isn’t all too inventive but it’s quite a fun listen nonetheless. Throw a bit of hardcore and pop in the mix and I’m sure it’ll be fun seeing this band live once or twice, too. All in all, I don’t think ‘Cold World’ will stick in our brains for all too long.