Militarie Gun’s God Save The Gun is a battle cry disguised as confession. It opens with Ian Shelton’s voice tearing through the static on “B A D I D E A,” admitting, “I’ve been slipping up.” That moment sets the tone for a record that takes everything from addiction to self-doubt and turns it into cathartic, stadium-sized punk rock. It is not about polish or pretense. It is about survival.

Written in the aftermath of personal collapse, God Save The Gun finds Shelton realizing that the character he was writing had become himself. Where 2023’s Life Under The Gun looked outward at cycles of family addiction and hurt, this time he is the one in the spiral. “I thought I was playing a character, but it was becoming my reality,” he says. That realization hit just before the band entered the studio, pushing Shelton toward sobriety and giving the album its raw edge.

The current lineup includes Shelton, guitarists William Acuña and Kevin Kiley, bassist Waylon Trim, and drummer David Stalsworth. They emerged stronger after a touring stretch that could have broken them. Instead, they spent three years writing with a clear mission to make a classic. They teamed up with producer Riley MacIntyre, known for his emotional precision on records by Adele and the Kills, along with longtime collaborators Phillip Odom and James Goodson of Dazy. The result is an album that hits hard both musically and emotionally, big ideas wrapped in even bigger songs.

The album’s artwork, showing Shelton as a cult leader, captures its self-aware humor and darkness. Across the 14 songs he dismantles rock’s savior mythology while confessing his own dependence on validation and chaos. From the feral energy of “Fill Me With Paint” to the hypnotic pulse of “God Owes Me Money,” the songs explode with defiance and doubt in equal measure. Later, the quiet ache of “Daydream” and the closing title track suggest the fragile possibility of redemption. “If you want to keep your life, you gotta let it go,” Shelton sings, his voice cutting through the wreckage.

God Save The Gun is the sound of a band fully awake inside its own disaster. It is loud, honest, and strangely hopeful, with Ian Shelton holding a mirror to the wreckage and daring himself to look.