Justin Scott & the Working Class – Thou Art Mortal (Album Review)

Thou Art Mortal is the debut album from Wisconsin-based rock band Justin Scott & the Working Class. This is a follow-up to their self-titled EP, released in 2021. I would’ve loved to have listened to the EP prior to listening to this album but I didn’t get the time for it. Nonetheless, I’m always intrigued to see what the world of rock has to offer in the modern age, though I will admit that the album cover grabbed my attention.

Enough of the intro though, let’s get into it!

The album starts off with the opener “Kairos”, which more or less means “the right time/moment”. The song itself is a piano piece and a rather gothic one at that. It really sounds like something that you would come out of the Romantic period, or maybe that’s just the aftereffects of watching Nosferatu this past weekend (a decent movie, I should add). “Kairos” itself may not seem like much, but I do think Joe Wagner is doing some cool stuff, and it just sets the vibe right. Easily my favorite part of this entire album.

“The Unveiling” is the follow-up, and it started the way I thought it would – with a metal riff. Despite the questionable production (we’ll get into that later), the music actually rocks. Sure, I’ve heard many songs that sound like this, but it’s a guilty head-banger. There is also narration over the riffs, which tells the story of how the Earth’s privileged class has colonized Mars, while leaving the poor and destitute in a state of chaos back on Earth. Overall, I quite enjoyed it.

“Ruin & Retribution” is where things start to get interesting though, and not in a good way. As inferred in the last paragraph, I really don’t like the production that is present anywhere on this record, and it’s on this track where I started to hear it. To start, the lead guitar, played by Justin Bills, is completely overshadowed by the riffs played by the rhythm guitar; it’s really to the point where it’s hard to hear what’s going on sometimes. Besides that, the guitar solo isn’t that good, especially towards the end of the song. I can say the same for the song “Under the Lash”, which has the same problems, except now the drums don’t even sound well recorded; calling it “amateur” would be an understatement.

Production is one of the two big problems on this record, the other being the vocals. Now, I honestly cannot say whether or not Justin Scott is a good singer or not. Much like the other instruments, the vocals were also not well recorded, or at least not mixed well. In “Ruin & Retribution”, I can easily say the vocals were not good at all, with it sounding like Justin was doing more than we can he handle. However, in “Under the Lash” and “Shepherd’s Crook”, he sounded a bit better. Sure, Justin does sound like a discount Phil Anselmo, but I wouldn’t say it’s all that terrible.

Regarding the other songs I didn’t mention: “The Wind of Impermanence” did sound good…for about the first 30 seconds. It meandered the rest of the way, leaving me bored despite being a short song. The last song, “Justice, Truth & Reason”, I just found to be a total snooze fest, with no reason to have a run time that is 9 minutes. On a positive note, I would say that I did enjoy Brian Ray’s bass playing throughout the record.

Here are the songs graded on a scale of 0-4:

1. Kairos – 3
2. The Unveiling – 3
3. Ruin & Retribution – 1
4. The Wind of Impermanence – 1
5. Shepherd’s Crook – 1
6. Under the Lash – 0
7. Justice, Truth, & Reason – 1

SCORE/Poor: There isn’t much else I could say. My only piece of advice to the band would be to get a better studio and better producers, because the quality of this record is borderline unacceptable. For Justin Bills, I would recommend to hone in on your song writing, see if you can get more creative with your soloing. For Justin Scott, I’m not vocal coach, but I would advise you to improve your singing, as well as utilize production techniques that can assist and get the effects you want in your songs. I can’t say that I see too much potential in the band, but I would be curious to see what they will do in the future. However, I will listen to the EP, so maybe there’s a gem or two that I’m missing.

[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]

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