Reviews
Pennywise
The Fuse
Digg this review.
Add to del.ico.us.Review Date: 2005-09-08
For those of you unaware this is Pennywise' eighth album. That is a long career for a punk band if you ask me, but the quality of work that is delivered by Pennywise is something that I think we can all agree on. Pennywise are a band that I would compare most in sound to Millencolin, which is probably a lot of the reason that I am partial to the sound that they have. My first encounter with Pennywise was with a cover of "Surfin' USA" on the first M.O.M. album, this song is quite a good cover one that I personally would recommend to a Pennywise fan who may not have been able to hear them before. The second song I heard by them was on the following M.O.M. album, that track was "I Get Around" which is again another cover of The Beach Boys. I would guess that for whatever reason that Pennywise may be fans of The Beach Boys, I think my favourite song by them was "Kokomo". Both of the songs that heard by Pennywise never got me out to the store to buy their album, which I would say was rather stupid of me because Pennywise is definitely a punk band that is playing the punk I would like to hear produced with more regularity. The saga that Pennywise delivers is something that can be enjoyed by someone just looking for a new punk album by a band that won't sell out. Now I did read some reviews on a few websites on the Internet and they were all claiming this CD not to be as good as the others ones they have released. I don't have the luxury of that comparison so I hope that will benefit me and my enjoyment of the whole album.
The first song on the disc is "Knocked Down". This is a good song for the start of the disc, it opens with a sicke guitar riff and then the drums come in and they are ridiculous. Basically throughout this album I have realised that the guitarist in this band is one of the better punk guitarist and the drummer is one of the better punk drummers. They just have a lot of consistency from track to track and I never seem to disappointed with it, the vocals are even pretty decent to me which adds to a good overall impression of the band. I do find that for a punk album that some of these songs are bordering on the long side, but that is my only knock on them for the moment. "Knocked Down" seems like a pretty standard punk intro track as far as I'm concerned, it's probably not the best opener but I don't hate it. I think a lot of the reason is because some of the other songs on the CD I just think may have fit better into the slot.
My favourite song would have to be the third song, "Competition Song". I love the way it opens, they almost appear to rev the engine, or play the same little riff over a bit until the real song kicks in all loud. The guitar on this track is the best that is is on any of the songs, which clearly is reason one that this is my favourite. The chorus is catchy, so I have to like that, "We fight amongst ourselves, we obliterate ourselves...yeah yeah...and we compete until we die, even though we don't know why, we believed in ancient lies, we compete until we die". During the whole chorus you can really hear that sicke guitar so you can really get into it, I am probably going to have to buy this CD because I need a punk CD like this to rock on the bus on my way to work. At the end of the song they do the ole fake ending slow down and then throw it back into full throttle for one last chourus before the whole song comes to an abrupt halt. I would say overall this song is the one to download if you claim to like punk music.
I think I know why people are complaining about this album, it probably is because this album isn't the hardest. But you have to think, they have been at it for eight albums, I don't even know what timeline that spans but you know that they've probably aged ten years which means they aren't kids anymore and can't play the same shit they used to. I mean when you get older you just lose that edge and thats a fact, it'll happen to us all and probably even to the Destroyer I'm sorry to say. It probably isn't a coincidence that "6th Avenue Nightmare" is the sixth track. The drums are the reason that I love this song, the best drums that I have heard on a punk track in a while. On the chorus it is featured a lot more and you really get to hear it then, which is good because the vocals on the chorus are pretty good. This song was close to being my favourite but I decided that I was more in a guitar mood today then drums for a change of pace.
A song that has a sweet amount of bass feature in it is track seven "The Kids". I don't want to talk about it much but they also throw in a sicke grindy and gritty punk guitar. The song that I do want to talk about is "Fox TV" which is actually the song after "The Kids". If you hear the song you'll know why I like "Fox TV" more, its clearly because this song is high octane shit, it kicks in with a whirling guitar for starters. From there they move to a more steady sound by evening out the pace and throwing down some vocals, I like the way that it all fits together. Once this sequence is done they repeat it, there is a dead air pause and then the whirling guitar kicks in and the whole thing you hear again with a new verse. I like the little formula that the song has, it's effective and they stick to it and don't deviate for much more than a thirty second guitar solo which is excellent by the way.
I want to mention two more songs, the first is track ten "Dying". This is more of a darker sounding track then some of the other stuff that is on the album. I would think that is because in the song he is singing about dying so why would you want that to sound happy and full of lucky fucking charms? It's a bit more of a gritty sounding Pennywise track, they don't do much of this style on the CD. The bass is most of the reason that they song can carry this sound effectively since the way it is played make things sound dark and disturbing on the musical end of things. "18 Soldiers" is the fourteenth track, this song is wicked. The way that it starts is with a nice little combination of drums, guitar and bass, the three really have a little jam session during the first ten seconds or so before they vocals kick in but stay tuned because this riff does reoccur with high frequency on this track. For all purposes this riff is basically the transition that they use between the verses, the chorus is ok but I would have to say that the verses are what I think are better in the song. The vocals don't knock my socks off but maybe I'm just bitter because him singing means that I will likely be listening to singing rather than the bitching music that the band was playing.
Tracks to Steal: "Dying", "18 Soldiers", "6th Avenue Nightmare", "Competition Song", "Fox TV", and you should also get their covers of "Surfin' USA" and "I Get Around"
Is the newest edition to the Pennywise CD library up to snuff?
Are people overreacting about this disc and its goodness?
Judgment Passed
Score: 8.5
I'm buying it.
- Brandon