Where on Earth do you start with Pennywise? In my younger years I loved this band as they typified the Epi/Fat sound I solely listened to until about 1999. But as years have gone by they’ve managed to make a career out of the same riff and album after album has passed me by for being dull, generic and predictable. The Pennywise sound is just that; they’re a great band, don’t get me wrong, but they just haven’t hit the spot for me for quite some time.
It was therefore astonishing when the band ditched their traditional means of releasing records and signed up with social networking site MySpace to put out this new album. I personally don’t see PW as a MySpace type band and so I was intrigued over how the hook up would work. And it turns out that you can download this album for free for a limited time if you follow certain criteria. A smart move for a band with a limited fanbase that has probably been with them for 15 years or more.
So has this hookup changed the band’s sound at all? Well…yes. ‘Reason To Believe’ is still Pennywise through and through as Jim Lindberg’s vocals sound as good as ever. And while the guitars and drums pound at 100mph there’s, well, something a bit different. It’s more melodic for a start and once you get past the pointless intro everything seems to have been tweaked for maximum effect. ‘Something To Live For’ has the biggest chorus the band have written in years and years. Is it more accessible? Yes. Is it more commercial? No. It’s difficult to pigeonhole exactly how the band have changed, but they have. And for me it’s for the better. They’re still fast and keep to their roots as ‘All We Need’ and ‘Confusion’ show, but the band mix the pace up a little and don’t stick to their formulaic sound which held them back on previous releases. And that’s a pleasant surprise if nothing else.
Will this record alienate some of their older fans? Possibly. Will it attract new fans? Almost definitely. It’s an oddity for Pennywise that they’ve changed things up but this isn’t a record which will go stale that quickly. So fair play for making this record widely available and for mixing things up.