One record can change your mind. Before today, I didn’t think an amazing amount to The Suicide Machines. After listening to this record, I’m well on my way to becoming a convert. The title track opening blasts out at you in way reminiscent of Sick on The Bus but within a couple of tracks you’ve come full circle in terms of hardcore aggression and ska bounciness. There’s a display of variety here that you’ll find in few new releases at the moment; an eclectic blend of punk rock, ska riffs and hardcore-influenced dynamism that just seems to energise you from the belly outwards. To be honest, it’s difficult to convey the catchiness of certain songs on this record but the last track is the perfect example – a bouncing bass, an earful of political rhetoric and some simply sublimely catchy vocals layered across a soaring chorus.
The album itself seems to build up its own unique sense of style as it goes on and, to be frank, it just improves as it meanders along a road which takes you on a whistle-stop tour of everything good about aggressive punk and its close subsidiaries. The lyrical content on some tracks is a little weak – track 2 “Ghost on Sunset Blvd” being a good example, but the actual rhythm and style in which the lyrics are delivered directs your attention away from that and more towards the overall sound which certainly compensates.
The whole ‘Anti Bush OMGz!1’ feel to the record does certainly feel like ground that’s been trodden far too many times in the past couple of years, but this record accomplishes it with a style and verve that few before them have and so you quite easily forgive yourself for any reservations you might have held regarding it. To pigeon-hole this record into a single category would be a crime, so I won’t attempt to, but if you like melodic hardcore, traditional punk rhythm and don’t mind some ska placement that’s used just enough to be varied yet infrequently enough to be an overbearing presence then I can’t recommend this enough. It gets better with each listen. If I were to try and pick fault then the obvious point of a short-ish length at barely 30 minutes would be something to mention, but I for one was exhausted after that. The production too is probably a little polished for some tastes, particularly if you’re a big fan of their earlier work, I would imagine. But please, don’t hold it against it as it’s a great record; in fact, consider me converted.
www.suicide-machines.com
Side One Dummy
Spud