Review by Kirsty Middlemist
I discovered Kris Barras Band in 2021, which means I missed the blues-soaked opening chapter of Kris’s career and instead met the band mid-transformation. What hooked me was the harder rock direction that Death Valley Paradise and then Halo Effect leaned into — bigger riffs, bigger choruses, a group audibly outgrowing the clubs and heading for the arenas. Monsters We Made, their sixth album and out this month on Earache Records, keeps travelling in that direction, but it does so with a noticeably lighter step than either of its predecessors.
For the uninitiated, this is a Devon band formed in 2015 and fronted by Kris Barras, an MMA fighter turned musician whose route into rock ran through the blues and a spell co-fronting Supersonic Blues Machine alongside ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. That heritage — grit, groove and a real feel for a guitar — still underpins everything, even as the band have steadily rebuilt themselves into an arena-facing hard rock act, drawing comparisons with the likes of Black Stone Cherry and Shinedown. Monsters We Made is the latest, and most comfortable, step in that reinvention.
The backdrop to this one matters. Since Halo Effect — a record that reached number five in the Official UK Album Chart and topped the rock and metal listings — Barras has come through a genuinely hard period, losing his mother to cancer. He has spoken about that grief loosening the shackles of outside expectation and of any preconceived notion of what the album should be, and you can hear that freedom in the songs. The label bills the record as a journey of self-acceptance, and for once the press line rings true: this feels like an album made to satisfy its makers first, with everyone else invited along afterwards.
Longtime listeners will recognise the balance of light and shade that has always run through the band’s collections, but here the melodies carry a softer touch. Nowhere is that clearer than on “Beautiful Lie,” one of the album’s gentlest and prettiest moments, where the band trade brute force for something closer to genuine tenderness. It is a side of the band that has always been present but rarely given this much room to breathe, and it is handled with a lightness that never tips into sentimentality.
That said, the singalong, anthemic instinct that first drew me in is still very much intact. “Riot of One” is the obvious flag-bearer — a defiant, arms-aloft anthem cut from the same cloth as “We Are Savages” or “My Parade,” yet without simply retreading either. The MMA cage of its video is no accident: this is a song about squaring up to the world and saying bring it on. “All Fall Down” is another full-blooded anthem, while “Unspoken” leans into pure melody and “Alive” pushes almost into pop territory without ever losing its bite.
The album is bookended with real confidence. The title track opens proceedings loud and unambiguous, a statement of intent that plants the flag early. At the other end, “Levitate” is a genuinely strong closer — one of my favourites here — that sends things off on a high rather than quietly fading out. In between there is room to roam: “Otherside” is built around a beautiful piano part from Josiah Manning, whose fingerprints are all over this record as both keyboardist and producer, and “End of Me” is an unashamed slice of eighties soft rock that has no right to work as well as it does.
If there is a moment likely to divide opinion it is “Rewind,” where the band experiments most openly with melody and song construction. On first listen it was my least favourite track — but I have learned not to trust that instinct with this band. The songs that do not land immediately are usually the ones that end up lodged in my head, and will end up on repeat. “Fake,” meanwhile, keeps the heavier groove ticking over and reminds you the harder edge has not gone anywhere.
Two things remain beyond dispute. Kris’s vocals are as strong as ever, carrying both the anthems and the quieter material without strain. His guitar playing in the breaks is, frankly, exceptional — the kind of work that comfortably places him in my personal top ten of current guitarists. Throughout the record he displays that skill without ever tipping into showing off; the solos serve the songs rather than hijacking them, a discipline that plenty of technically gifted players never quite learn. Taken as a whole, Monsters We Made is a slightly softer offering than Death Valley Paradise or Halo Effect, and some of the band’s heaviest devotees may miss a touch of that weight. But softer is not the same as slighter. This is a melodically rich, thoroughly enjoyable album with all the light and shade the band do so well, and it is going straight onto the stack. On the strength of these songs it should be excellent live during the forthcoming tour, where the anthems in particular feel built to detonate. Fans of KBB will not be disappointed — and newcomers may well find, as I did back in 2021, that this is a very easy band
The band headline across the UK this autumn, calling at:
Wed 7th Oct – SOUTHAMPTON, The 1865
Thu 8th Oct – NOTTINGHAM, Rescue Rooms
Fri 9th Oct – GLASGOW, The Garage
Sat 10th Oct – HULL, Welly
Sun 11th Oct – CAMBRIDGE, Mash
Tue 13th Oct – LONDON, The Garage
Wed 14th Oct – MANCHESTER, Club Academy
Thu 15th Oct – WOLVERHAMPTON, KKs Steelmill
Fri 16th Oct – TORQUAY, The Foundry
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