The Treatment: Generation Me

Just what the doctor ordered.

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

The heat is on for Cambridge’s The Treatment. There’s a lot riding on the new boys – guitarist Tao Grey and vocalist Mitchel Emms, who puts in an astonishing, bravura performance – and a bunch of songs intended to represent something of a step up and beyond the decent but uneven brace of preceding albums.

Fortunately, everything good about the band’s previous incarnation – the powerhouse AC/DC riffing and ballsy energy – has been preserved and amplified by a new-found sense of urgency and songwriting focus.

For the most part this is foot-to-the-floor dirty, bluesy hard rock, exemplified by the swaggering likes of Let It Begin, Cry Tough (nothing to do with Poison, fortunately) and Generation Me, complemented by the Bon Jovi-esque Backseat Heartbeat and heavy grind of Better Think Again. This is consistently top stuff, but surely just the beginning of something much greater.

Essi Berelian

Whether it’s magazines, books or online, Essi has been writing about rock ’n’ metal for around thirty years. He has been reviews editor for Classic Rock and Metal Hammer, rock reviews editor for lads mag Front and worked for Kerrang!. He has also written the Rough Guide to Heavy Metal and contributed to the Rough Guide to Rock and Rough Guide Book of Playlists, and the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles (13th edition). Most fun interview? Tenacious D – Jack Black and Kyle Gass – for The Pick of Destiny movie book. An avid record/CD/tape collector, he’s amassed more music than he could ever possibly listen to, which annoys his wife no end.