Cleveland singer Chris Bianchi (Forever In Terror) formed HOW WE FEEL with longtime friend Brian Lamtman on drums, which brings the rest of a full-length 2025 album after releasing a few tracks starting in the fall of 2024. The album is called Ready For War, with 10 bone crushing songs, starting with “Make It Out Alive” which is one of the songs that can be seen on video at YouTube along with the next two songs “Losing My Mind” and “Devil Inside” for starters. They earn their name right out of the gate HOW WE FEEL are exactly how they sound.
“Dragging Me Under” is where the album starts to take off and never looks back, with cool song after cool song, equally driven by Bianchi’s vocals and Lamtman’s pounding drums. If you like (Imagine Dragons) you’ll like “Talk About About Me” and “Fire” as if they were one song, with Bianchi killing it with the lyrics getting more and more into what the (LP) is all about. Each song heals a different wound on Ready For War, with “Looking For A Reason” showing Bianchi’s softest side on the record, without any of the high and low register screaming stuff, as his volcanic voice can go just about anywhere he wants to take it and back.
The tempo stays in the midrange on “Dangerous” which is yet another different track from the norm on Ready For War, and one of the more accessible tracks for the same reason as the latter track, which is where it just takes a mellower turn, which I also like a lot. It’s all centered around life’s current ups and downs, and this is the sweet spot of the album where everything is the grooviest, as most of the songs deal with heavier and harder feelings.
The way this album makes you feel keeps getting tested as every cut serves to be a theme for the preparation of war, as if battle is the only outcome, but expression is what really holds the key. The whole LP is great, as it builds in succession and “Higher” it goes toward the end. Title track “Ready For War” is an earworm, and a killer way to close out the LP.
Anne Hollister