Angel City Outcasts "Let it Ride" CD
[Thorp]
Damn, it's too bad for these guys, 'cause they seem to write some solidly rockin' punk tunes that don't sound generic at all, but holy shit is the recording terrible! I mean, not only does it sound more like something that would've come out 10 years ago from a recording standpoint, but it would've sounded thin and powerless then. So now? Yeah, sadly I can't really get into this because of the sound. The guitars are super thin, the drums are shockingly devoid of any density or fullness whatsoever, the bass is ultra defined and plunky (read: thin), and the vocals are also on the flimsy side (though slightly more effective than the instrumentation). Anyway, ignoring the shoddy production, the band writes catchy songs that average two to three minutes each and jump from poppy west coast punk rock to more of a full ahead rock 'n' roll influence, but like I said, it's not generic at all. So no, they're not just some retro band trying to play classic rock 'n' roll with a little bit of a punk edge, and no, there are no zippy stop/start palm-muting riffs or generic pop-punk staples herein. It's not that kind of thing at all, actually. They just write solid songs based around creative riffs, while the vocal arrangements are pretty involved and employ a lot of strong layering and harmonizing. In fact, I think I'd have been really pleasantly surprised by this disc were the sound quality more beneficial to what they're doing, because it's evident that they're good songwriters, it's just hard to appreciate it because so much of their promise is lost in the way the disc has been documented. "Popeye in Afghanistan" isn't my thing at all, both because of its cheesily humorous (and cheesily patriotic) subject matter and its quick spurts of folk-ish instrumentation and vocal harmonies, plus the dual guitar interpretations of the Popeye theme melody; and similarly, "LA Rock City" is of course a slightly revised Kiss cover, and you can't lose but so much with 70's Kiss, but the vocals here don't really gel so much with the whole Kiss thing, so... I'm not such a fan. I can start to get into some of the faster tracks like "The Chase" though, with its energetic arrangements and killer fucking vocal work during the chorus, and "Black Suits on Table Three" comes close to that level of speedy energy as well. Visually the inner content of the layout's pretty standard and uninteresting, but the cover looks damn solid, and that's the most important element anyway. The lyrics are mostly personal stuff about dealing with hardships or having fun, much of which is delivered in an overly narrative manner that names names and stuff, which I've always found to be a little alienating, but they make their point: "You gotta outlive the long dark night, Persevere and see the light, And only then my friend you'll understand what life is worth..." In the end I don't really enjoy this disc so much, but I don't want to leave this review with an overly negative impression on hand simply because I'd quite like to hear this band score a better set of production values sometime. They seem to be buddies with the Whiskey Rebels, so they ought to record their next effort wherever the Rebels did "Create or Die", 'cause the results could be massively improved from this state of affairs. Decent songs, they're just really marred by the sound quality. (5/10)
Running time - 27:50, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: The Chase, Black Suits on Table Three]
Thorp Records - http://www.thorprecords.com

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