In the current musical climate of
digital downloads, illegal downloads and ever plummeting CD
sales, it’s hard for bands to actually find a profitable way
of releasing new albums, especially when they're usually leaked months before
the release date or priced at extortionate amounts, causing
the fans wallets to collapse. For California punks
Pennywise, they opted for a Radiohead style release for
their ninth album “Reason To Believe”, giving the fans
the album for free via their MySpace page and then releasing
it in physical format if fans wish to purchase the
CD. You’d think that the band
must be giving away their album for various reasons, a new
sound, a poor album compared with the others or even just to
open up their music to new people. But who cares about
reasons when the album itself is the pinnacle of modern punk
rock!
Opener “As Long As We
Can” starts with a surreal set of drum beats before the
fast, edgy guitars, passionate vocals and thundering bass
all kick in, showing a progression from the earlier, rawer
sounding Pennywise into an epic new monolith. A cross
between the political sentiments of Bad Religion, the rough
guitars of Rancid and even a pinch of Canadian pop punks Sum
41. “One Reason” and “Faith
And Hope” both sound politically fuelled and are up there with
political punk activists Rise Against, if they added the
swagger of the Dropkick Murphys to their sound. “Something To Live For”
has the obligatory “oh-oh-oh” group sing-along, and should sound cracking live.
Elsewhere with tracks like “All
We Need” and new single “The Western World”, Pennywise have
plethora of new songs which will sit easily into their already bulging
live set list. Throwing in elements of
Sick Of It All and Bad Brains into their heavier songs like
“Confusion” and also “It’s Enough To Believe” only serves to add
variation to the album, making it hard hitting but still a
furious punk record.
On this evidence there
is reason to
believe (pardon the pun) that this may well be the punk album of
2008, it ticks all the right boxes and, even if you’re not
a Pennywise fan, it's worth checking out as it will
convert you, it did me. Let’s just hope to top it all off
that there’s a European tour later this year.
John
Consterdine
