Tag: skapunk

The Best of the Worst – Painted Fools

Ska, Punk, Rock and Roll!

New Jersey based The Best of the Worst is back at it with a brand new EP. Painted Fools (available on 04/20/2017) offers up 7 new tracks of, well, ska, punk, and rock and roll.

From dreamy to screamy the band hits a wide range of sounds both across and within individual tracks. I’ll be honest here, I’m not at all familiar with this band, so I’m going to go out on a limb here with who their influences might be. I hear the subtle guiding hand of Bomb the Music Industry, Less Than Jake, Isaac Green and the Skalars, Lawrence Arms and, I don’t know, maybe some Tom Petty.

I am honestly a bit disappointed that I haven’t heard of them before, because I’m rather enjoying what I’m hearing. They’ve got track complexity, without being obtuse. The songs are well crafted with subtlety and nuance. Good takes. Good mix. There’s a link below. Go and buy a copy. Support local music, even if local is 1000s of miles away from where you really are.

We have the internet people! You can listen to sweet new music and then give a band some of your hard earned ducats so that they too can enjoy the sweet life of top shelf ramen on occasion.

http://chokeartist.storenvy.com/products/19480255-the-best-of-the-worst-painted-fools-cd

Cheers!
Jerry Actually

Tracks:
1. Habits Live Hard
2. Inside My Apartment
3. Where Complacency Lives.
4. Spoiler Alert:
5. Doesn’t Really Matter, (feat. Tom Etts)
6. Like Bugs in Amber
7. We’ve Been Held Captive

Bankshot EP

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© 2015 Bankshot

[rating:8/10]

bankshotAt this very moment, I’m listening to a new EP from a band called Bankshot. They are a ska punk band outta Davenport, IA. The five tracks on the self-titled release bring me back to the sweet 3rd wave days when all of my favorite bands came out of the Midwest and college towns, and sometimes from Midwest college towns. As I listen I’m reminded of old Mustard Plug, Los Rudiments, new acts like I Voted for Kodos, and the combined roots of multiple generations of punk and ska.

The music on the whole is energetic and upbeat the way in the way that you’d assume if you knew anything about skapunk. In keeping with the nature of the genre, track length is short (generally) and the songs are rather rapid paced. The tracks can, at times, seem a bit busy and perhaps careening towards falling apart. That’s not a bad thing per se, as within those same attributes, there’s the raw urgency of youth. a quality which rarely transcends later years. The production is sparse and suited to the material. There’s a very garage rock / old school sound to the recording. I think it provides a sense of how the band might sound live.

With only five tracks, it is a brief introduction into what has the potential to be a very promising band if they can keep on refining and defining their sound.

You can listen to the Bankshot EP here.

Cheers!
Jerry Actually

The Krayons – Gaza

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Skapunk’s not dead! Hells Yeah!

The Krayons are a new fast, raw, energetic punk / ska band from Wakefield West Yorkshire. Their songs pick up on relevant world issues and politics in a high energy ball of sonic punk passion. “Ready, Steady, Nuke” is the debut album from the angry Yorkshire 3 piece and is available now via www.underdogzrecords.co.uk . Digital versions of the album are avlialbe via iTunes, Amazon, CD baby, Band Camp, Spotify and all leading online download services.

[youtube ESpkTEMAOJ4]

Flatout Jones – Closed Doors and Weird Situations

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©2010 Flatout Jones

A. I love punk rock.
B. I love skapunk.
C. I love comedic overtones (and undertones)

Flatout Jones provides all of the above.

Consider this: the more punk side of Less Than Jake and the ska side of the Suicide Machines; add those together, recalibrate to those settings, set the dial a bit more towards punk rock, plant tongue firmly in cheek and I think you’ll get a decent idea of what I’m picking up from Flatout Jones.

Once again I’m faced with some music outta Mass that sounds badass. Closed Doors and Weird Situations from Boston quartet Flatout Jones has it where it counts. (See the above list)

In a nutshell you’ve got a punk rock band that isn’t afraid to bring the ska and interject an ample amount of humor into the tracks. Don’t, however, let the idea of humor scare you off, ya know if you’re a totally serious jackhole that can’t for a second let down your guard and everything has to be toughguy or die. … you know who you are. I like party songs. So sue me.

The intro track/song makes me think of Killface, that muscular talon-footed fella from Frisky Dingo, Not so much from direction more from intonation and intent. For my money you don’t get better sarcastic humor than that. I digress. You’ll probably want to know a bit more about the music contained on said release.

Certainly the band offers bang for the buck. 17, count ‘em, 17 tracks contained on one release. If you we’re to compare that to, oh say The Decline from NOFX, you’d have 16 more tracks. Beat that! Really though, the tracks rip, they’re played well and the mix of mostly punk with the occasional ska break doesn’t disappoint. (Assuming that sort of thing doesn’t disappoint you.)
If you wanna hear a bit for yourself, you can check the band out here in their online cemetery/museum: http://www.myspace.com/flatoutjones

Step 1. Listen
Step 2. Rock

–Jerry Actually