Devil’s Brigade - “devil’s brigade”
August 22nd 2010 00:57
Matt Freeman from Rancid’s solo project has seen the light of day in between Rancid not touring Australia and while Tim works on another Transplants album. Our first taste was back during the Give Em The Boot samplers Hellcat records used to put out. That offering ‘Vampire Girl’ (which has bee recorded here) was a gritty psychobilly affair with Matt’s graveled vocals and some fine slapping double bass work. With the debut self titled Matt has expanded on that pyschobilly root and added dynamics such as western, rockabilly, punk and blues. The end result is a dozen tracks of, and this pains me to say, mediocre songs.
This album has such potential to be great. Matt is a wonderful bass player. In fact, he is one of the most underrated bassists in music today. Yet the transition to an upright bass sees him simplify and take the shine off his own ability. Vocally, it fails. His harsh growling voice suits the pace of a Rancid song, but here, it’s mismatched. Either he needs to “sing” (which I’ve heard him do in back up vocals with Rancid) or the pace of the music needs to be quicker to accommodate. The songs themselves are not to bad. Tim Armstrong’s guitar work is impressive. Tracks like opener ‘I’m Movin’ Through’ & ‘My Own Man Now’ are straight up punk rock tracks, but it’s when he moves away into traditional rockabilly and touches of country music where it starts to fall apart. He just doesn’t quite pull it off. ‘Shakedown’ sounds like a Rancid B-side from their last record. ‘Bridge Of Gold’, sung by Tim and Lars feels unnatural and ‘Ride Harley’ is neither here or there.
This record just fails to live up to what I expect from Rancid members. It’s strange that together, they’ve written some of the best punk songs since Joe Strummer in The Clash. But individually, Tim’s solo album, Lars Frederiksen and The Bastards and now this album just seem to fail. Maybe not every member in a band needs to write their own album or form side projects. Sometimes it’s best, for the listener, to stick with what you know.
This album has such potential to be great. Matt is a wonderful bass player. In fact, he is one of the most underrated bassists in music today. Yet the transition to an upright bass sees him simplify and take the shine off his own ability. Vocally, it fails. His harsh growling voice suits the pace of a Rancid song, but here, it’s mismatched. Either he needs to “sing” (which I’ve heard him do in back up vocals with Rancid) or the pace of the music needs to be quicker to accommodate. The songs themselves are not to bad. Tim Armstrong’s guitar work is impressive. Tracks like opener ‘I’m Movin’ Through’ & ‘My Own Man Now’ are straight up punk rock tracks, but it’s when he moves away into traditional rockabilly and touches of country music where it starts to fall apart. He just doesn’t quite pull it off. ‘Shakedown’ sounds like a Rancid B-side from their last record. ‘Bridge Of Gold’, sung by Tim and Lars feels unnatural and ‘Ride Harley’ is neither here or there.
This record just fails to live up to what I expect from Rancid members. It’s strange that together, they’ve written some of the best punk songs since Joe Strummer in The Clash. But individually, Tim’s solo album, Lars Frederiksen and The Bastards and now this album just seem to fail. Maybe not every member in a band needs to write their own album or form side projects. Sometimes it’s best, for the listener, to stick with what you know.
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