After losing original lead singer Austin Winkler in 2013, Oklahoma metal-pop band Hinder regrouped, releasing its best record to date, 2017’s The Reign. The band’s current vocalist, Marshal Dutton, sounds fine on The Reign, but Hinder is a band tailor-made for a high-toned music critics’ seminar on formalism and emotion in metal-pop of the heartland-of-America variety. The Reign puts me in mind of influences that are too basic to taxonomize, but the album contains a lot of stuff: prog rock, Red Hot Chili Peppers-esque funk-metal moves, post-Kansas harmony vocals, power ballads and power pop. They write about self-assertion that is facilitated by adherence to a relatively morals-free rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. The album’s best cut is the most power-poppish — “Making It Hard” rocks like Cheap Trick. Elsewhere, Hinder explores the downside of rock in “Remember Me,” which is about drowning in an ocean of self-pity and asking your significant other to love you anyway. Hinder released an interesting 2019 single, “Halo.” Kentucky post-classic rockers Kiss Kiss Bang will open. 8 p.m. at The Basement East, 917 Woodland St. EDD HURT
Hinder w/Kiss Kiss Bang
