A few years ago Israeli punks Useless ID were seemingly just a fraction away from being a skate-punk supergroup. A split EP with The Ataris and a killer album on Kung Fu set them up nicely, but for whatever reason they didn’t quite make the step up to the bigger leagues. Their Bad Religion/NUFAN-esque brand of punk rock may simply have gone out of fashion. But the band are back with a slightly more refined sound and this record is actually a pretty sterling effort. I’m not convinced, however, that this record will take them into the mainstream.
Produced by Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore this record has all the hallmarks of the Blasting Rooms sound. It’s more polished and hits harder. It’s even a bit darker, both lyrically and in tone, than previous albums. ‘Blood Pressure’, for instance, isn’t as quick as previous tracks, yet it still has a really solid melodic vocal which does sound spookily like NUFAN. ‘Killing A Ghost’ and ‘Isolate Me’ are two other standout tracks on a very solid record. Useless ID have never broken new ground and this, while a slight change from the norm, isn’t groundbreaking either. But it’s still a good record that fans of the genre will undoubtedly enjoy.