I had heard nothing but good about Handgun Bravado before receiving this CD in the post. Many people had ‘bigged’ them up, Mike Davies seem to enjoy praising them on the Lock Up, and I was in need of a new favorite band to entertain me from day to day during my daily walks to the humdrum of University life. So it was with great anticipation I listened to it for the first time, and did the fourteen tracks impress me? Well, I have been in possession of the CD for about three weeks now, and I still don’t know.
Handgun Bravado are best described as a sort of melodic punk band in the shape of Pennywise and Bad Religion which is about the best comparison I could of possibly given them. Made up of ex-members from Dag Nasty, Zoinks and Fugazi, the music tends to range from the highly charged and lyrically poetic ‘Invisible Man’ to the darker and edgy ‘These Days Move Fast’, with the aforementioned comfortably standing out above the pack in the latter end of the album as it falters somewhat. But with lyrics such as ‘your ego has swollen the shit they feed you’, you can’t help but fall in love it. Unfortunately, it isn’t all peaches and cream though as certain tracks such as the dull ‘Reader’ plod along at a rate which would send the most hardened punker to a state of depression. As mentioned previously, the albums opening half is a joy to behold as opening tracks ‘Don’t Deceive Me’ and ‘Beneath Me’ bring a degree of optimism to the recording as a whole, while ‘Pen and Ink‘ slows the pace down a little with a delightful bassline running riot throughout the song, but the joys are short lived as some of the distinctly more uninspiring tracks take centre stage.
It is not that the songs are particularly bad, it is simply that the trio show how talented they are at creating thunderous punk rock songs with a dark cutting edge, which undermines the weaker tracks on the album. ‘Victory Song’ and ‘Over and Out‘ are perfect examples of having two songs next to each other with the former shitting all over the latter from a great height. The band do generally excel when certain degree’s of subtlety are inserted into tracks such as on ‘Tasteless’ with the repeating theme of silence and noise crescendos morphing into a cacophony crunching guitars, pounding drums and sickly sweet basslines. But there just isn’t enough throughout the CD to keep you coming back for more.
As mentioned in my opening spiel I am still none the wiser as to how this record lies in the big picture of things. It veers from strong to weak a little too much for my liking which is a shame, as it is obvious the members have a hell of a lot of talent at their finger tips. For fans of melodic crunching punk, I expect you to lap this up, otherwise, it maybe just a little to inconsistent for your liking.
Jay