Dead Broke / Rad Girlfriend / Recess (2014)
OK, this is the home stretch for 2014. After today, tomorrow's Christmas record and one more 2014 record on Friday I should be all set to post my year end list on Monday. It's been a real scramble these last few days of 2014 with way more records being released at the tail end of the year than usual. This Raging Nathans record didn't get quite as close to the end of the year as Stay Clean Jolene did, but I did end up ordering them together as I was slacking a bit.
First things first, I'll get the negative out of the way. I don't like the art for this record. I'm not sure what it is about it that irks me, but I've seen a lot of these super cartoony covers on punk rock records lately. For some reason I just have a hard time taking them seriously. No matter how good the music could be, there's something about art like this that makes me think the band is probably just making dick jokes over power chords.
That's definitely not the case with The Raging Nathans (despite rhyming "shit" with "bullshit" in one song), as the music on this record is really strong. They definitely are a pop punk band, but with more of an emphasis on the early 90's version of the genre. They're a lot gruffer than say Zoinks! or Squirtgun, but have a similar knack for song structure. Everything on Losing It is quite catchy and at times they come across like a more straightforward version of Rumspringer, with perhaps a slightly higher ratio of songs that require raising your fist in the air and holding out the last word of the chorus.
The Raging Nathans have put out one of the better no apologies pop punk records of the year. There are a lot of pretty bad and generic pop punk bands in the world, it's nice to see a group like The Raging Nathans can still keep things exciting.
The Raging Nathans - Losing It:
No comments:
Post a Comment