The New Breed "Off the Beaten Path" CD
[Thorp]
Here's the third full-length from this rocked out oi/street punk (with a little bit of folky stuff) act, and despite the fact that I've never been a particular fan of this style, I definitely like this slightly better than their last record. The recording is unfortunately a little thin and needs more low-end, but the songwriting is pretty good and I the gruff singing vocals are very nicely delivered for this style. "Friendly Fire" opens with a little bit of a faster rock 'n' roll style complete with a few quick little leads, "Action" and "Back Against the Wall" are others that are a little more rocked out and memorable, etc. "Port City Rebels" is among the select songs that brings in some traditional folk instruments and stuff, which is sort of interesting, but the stuff's so obscured in the mix that it serves little purpose - which could be good or bad, as were it too dominant it could get goofy. But overall the writing is definitely a lot catchier this time out, but genuinely so, they're not polishing anything up or throwing around anything that's uncharacteristically melodic for this brand of punk rock. Towards the latter chunk of the record I do start to get a little bored, but that's probably due to my personal tastes more than anything. More specifically regarding the sound, the rhythm section gets a little lost behind the midrange-heavy guitars and vocals, so if they had a little more bass in there it could definitely make a huge difference. The guitar tone is fine in its lack of heaviness, it just needs a little more character to give the basslines room to roam. If the vocals had a little more space that could be nice as well, because the singing is really pretty cool. This record also looks a shitload better than their last one, with stronger lyrical content to boot. All of the artwork looks to have been lifted from old war posters or maybe book illustrations or something (the front cover really stands out nicely), with the lyrics covering everything from personal hardships to working your life away, drinking and friendships, or even a few political tracks dealing with the current political climate of war and greed, etc. So things definitely hit on a little more than your average oi record, it's not a bunch of songs about drinking and fighting. There's a video on the CD-Rom portion of the disc for an older songs called "Lessons Learned", but I honestly don't like it because the footage looks too forced when they're performing into the camera, it just doesn't really work with the sincerity of the music at all. Pound for pound, fans of their prior work should definitely be into this as it's very similar though perhaps a little more consistent. I'm not a big fan but there are some great songs here, so if you're down with this stuff give these guys a shot. (6/10)
Running time - 43:46, Tracks: 13
[Notable tracks: Friendly Fire, Action, Back Against the Wall]
Thorp Records - http://www.thorprecords.com

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