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RISE
AGAINST
REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE
FAT WRECK CHORDS
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| This
quartet from Arlington Heights, Illinois has surely studied all the classic
and pop influences of modern punk music. They vascillate wildly from melody
to angst, with a touch of hardcore on the tracks “Dead Ringer”
and “”Last Chance Blueprint”. Guitarist Todd Mohney has
a crunchy big almost metallic distortion tone, which is really nice because
it’s full and fat—the only problem is that all the songs are
written in the tried and true format--classic 3- chord quick change. |
It
seems like all the punk and pop-punk bands tend to write all their songs
in the same keys, which makes for a hard time really getting a good grip
on their differences when they are played back to back with other groups
in a radio format. Vocalist Tim McIlrath also falls into the trap of singing
in the same tone and key, as a thousand other bands. Truthfully, he’s
got the Billy Joe/Green Day tone and style absolutely memorized into his
DNA, but occasionally mixes it up with the cookie monster growl here and
there on the harder compositions—hence they were given the description
by their record company as being melodic hardcore influenced by Bad Religion,
Minor Threat, and Bad Brains. I don’t know if I entirely agree. They
couldn't be further from Bad Brains...
Now, having said all that, if you like that sound, then you’ll be
absolutely thrilled by Revolutions Per Minute. It’s not a
bad record. It’s well recorded and mixed, and it sounds good really
loud—but it is a little unoriginal at times. Probably the most entertaining
part of the cd is the bonus track…let the cd play a while after the
last track and you’ll get a cover of Journey’s “Any Way
You Want It” with a punk attitude. Cute…and much better than
that cover that The Ataris did of Don Henley’s “Girls Of Summer”.
You gotta smile at the sincerity of their rendition of the early ‘80s
corporate rock staple….but wasn’t punk the one thing that we
orchestrated to get rid of that AOR schlock? Hhhmmmm...me thinks the children
are a bit confused....
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