Having heard so many good things about Strung Out from my friends and having only heard a couple of tracks off of samplers, I was delighted to find the band’s debut CD in a bargain bin in my local record store. And having already been warned that ‘Another Day In Paradise’ is the bands weakest effort, I plugged in and pressed play with caution.
But I needn’t have. Everything you get told about Strung Out is true. This is a band choc-full of talent, with break-neck guitar solo’s, machine gun drumming and some of the best vocals found in skate punk. ‘Another Day In Paradise’ is the bands first release on Fat Wreck Chords, and has a very rough and ready edge to it. Bordering on hardcore, Strung Out manage to fuse melody with some searing metal axework, without ever losing a punk edge. Jason Cruz is a better than average lyricist too, and it is pretty easy to see why everyone raves on about their later stuff.
Kicking off with ‘Population Control,’ the band immediately launch into melodicore punk rock, setting the tone for an above average CD. ‘Lost?’ and ‘Drag Me Down’ continue the theme with some punishing riffs. Strung Out are definetly a band with talent.
It would be easy to stick Strung Out into a genre alongside Pennywise, Lagwagon, Good Riddance and Propagandhi, but that would be slightly too obvious. Although the band do mesh elements of all of these bands, they do have a sound which they can call their own. ‘Ashes’ in particular sounds a little bit like Good Riddance with Jim Lindberg of Pennywise taking over vocal duties.
In general you could be harsh and claim that some of the songs sound the same. And to an extent I guess they do. On first listen there aren’t that many songs that differ from each other. But then you could probably say that about any band, no matter what the genre. All Nofx songs use the same three chords after all, don’t they?
‘Faulter’ is fast and furious with a kick-ass metal riff, and ‘Away’ is even more frenetic. But its the harmonies that really bring out an extra dimension to the songs. ‘Alone’ sounds like Fat Mike of Nofx fame trying to hijack the vocals with a dirty, almost scuzzy, distorted riff. Here is a band that clearly know a little more than three power chords. ‘Unclean’ sounds a bit like Craig’s Brother and ‘Mad Mad World’ has a cool intro. Pickslides really do it for me in punk, especially when the tone of the guitars is as fat as it is here.
By no means a modern classic, but Strung Out show they have more than enough to hold their own in the fearsome world of punk rock. Worth a purchase if you can get this cheap, but I’m guessing that ‘Twisted By Design’ would probably be a safer bet.
Paul Savage