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| From | Mark London <mrl@psfc.mit.edu> |
| Subject | The only punk rock CD I bought this year. |
| Date | Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:02:14 -0500 |
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Every year I discover at least one punk rock CD worth mentioning to this
mailing list. When I find it, I tend to want to talk about it a lot,
so sorry that this posting is so long.
Decent punk CDs are hard to find, especially since the demise of the
1970s punk revival that occurred in the 1990s. I grew up on 60s music,
so I need my punk to have lots of hooks and melodies and real guitar
playing. Too many of them are just punk, rather than being punk rock.
This year, the only punk CD I bought was Red Invasion's "I'm not too
young to die". This Boston band's name makes them sound like they are a
hardcore punk band, but in fact their sound is something like the
Heartbreakers melded with the Dead Boys. Lots of great guitar licks.
No boring chord playing. It also has a classic dual guitar sound. And
the guitars sound very bright. In fact, everything is bright, including
the bass guitar and the drums. No heaviness to be found here. This
great sound immediately sets it apart from most punk CDs that I own.
And then there are the vocals. The lead vocalist will definitely remind
you of Stiv Bators. Very expressive sounding. But the vocalist is no
imitator. He's got his own sound, and to me it's very captivating. And
even though I often can't stand CDs that have scant amounts of backup
vocals, this is one CD which hardly needs any, both due to the great
lead vocals, and the great guitar sound. However, there are still
enough backup vocals (whoas, yeahs, and heys), that help to give a dose
of pop to many of the songs. Combine that with lots of guitar dubs,
great melodies, and a fast pace, and this album simply rocks.
Oh yeah, the lyrics. They tend to be more Johnny Thunders style than
Dead Boys, which is ok with me, since I'm not actually a Dead Boys fan.
The songs are stories about lost loves and lives, although they are
definitely more edgier and punkier than the Heartbreakers. However,
many of the lyrics are often slurred and hard to understand. But this
actually adds to the mystery and coolness of the songs. It's the Louie
Louie effect. You can listen to the songs and interpret them
differently every time. Lyrics can sometimes get in the way, but here's
there are just enough phrases coming through to stir feelings and
emotions in the listener. But even with these "heartbreaking" lyrics,
it's offset by the upbeat exciting music. And that combination, when it
works well, is IMHO, what great rock is all about.
There are song samples of this CD on the web, and they attracted me to
the CD. But as in a lot of cases, only after listening to the whole CD,
did I realize how good this CD was. No filler songs here. In fact, the
best 2 songs come right near the end of the CD. This adds to the
excitement of listening to the CD, unlike many CDs where the best songs
come in the middle, after which you have less to look forward to. Of
course it's a bit easier to do that with punk music, where the songs are
of the three minute variety, so that it doesn't take that long to get to
those good songs. On the other hand, songs up to that point have to be
good enough to make the listener want to continue listening to this CD,
so it raises the bar of the quality of all the songs, and that's what a
real album should be like. - Mark
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