Rancid – s/t
(Hellcat)

22 tracks, 38 minutes. I know punk rockers sometimes have trouble with mathematics, so I’ll do the calculations for you: that works out to about a minute and a half per song. I think there is actually only one song on this album over two minutes long.

It’s obvious that Rancid felt they had something to prove with this album. I mean, who the hell releases two self-titled albums anyways?? It’s too bad that the music had to suffer because of it.

I thought their last album was brilliant. A total mixture of different styles, a bit of experimentation, and just basically a lot of good songwriting. I was hoping for more of the same. What I got was a collection of short hardcore blasts that fire off in succession without ever really grabbing me in any way whatsoever. Ninety percent of the songs have identical drum beats and 3 chord structures. It gets boring really fast.

It’s certainly Rancid, there’s no doubt about that. Their style is unmistakable, mostly because of their sloppy guitar sound and Tim’s unintelligible “singing”. It’s a stripped down version of Rancid though, lacking in diversity. Out of all the ska-punk bands out there, I thought Rancid would be one of the last ones to dump the ska from their music.

The members of Rancid are some of the more talented musicians in punk rock, and I find an album of three chord punk rock songs to be a disappointment coming from them. Matt Freeman is one of the best punk rock bassists out there, but his playing on this album is either very simplistic or so chaotic it sounds like he was just moving his fingers aimlessly across the fretboard (check out the wack bass solo in the song Axiom).

There are some worthwhile moments on the album, such as the sing-alongs Rwanda and Radio Havana, the pseudo-ska rhythms of Let Me Go, and the radio single It’s Quite Alright. More often than not however, any interesting parts in the songs last all of 5 seconds, and are quickly forgotten.

This album has been getting rave reviews within the punk rock community (I’m sure the commercial music world wants nothing to do with it), and I don’t really understand why people are so impressed with it. Sure it has intensity and emotion, but damn, it just gives me a headache. — Sean