Joey Cape is, as most of you know, singer for Lagwagon and an icon of melodic punk rock and skatepunk, real legend. Jose Prieto is from MakeWar, awesome younger band that you should check out if you did not listen to their songs. This time, Joey and Jose deliver a little split seven inch with one song each. Joey Cape song is called Sorry and I can easily imagine it not acoustic, as is in this rendition, but with full band and it would be in the dark vein of last Lagwagon album called Railer which is for me one of the best band s releases ever in their history. Gentle, melodic and atmospheric with recognizable Joey s voice over great acoustic guitar melody. Jose Prieto s song is called Red and is a nice surprise continuing somehow darkened and sad atmosphere with fantastic melody on chorus and great Jose s voice having great interplay with Joey s voice. This is a nice little record.
I was not an eager fan of Joey Cape´s solo work and albums for a long time. Last full length was great and I was eager what to expect on this one, although I had no big hopes because of a reason that I mentioned above. Fat Wreck Chords released this one as always and I think this is the best collection of songs that Lagwagon singer made solo up to date. There are twelve songs on this opus with significant record title to which I think all of us can relate to when thinking about 2020. Joey deals with lots of personal stuff here and you can hear melodic songs with great vocal lines, creating thematically atmosphere of darkness, hope and despair, something that lot of us felt last year. But, Joey also leaves a place for hope and leaves us thinking worse can´t happen that already did. Songs like It Could Be Real, Check Your Ego At The Door, Saturday Night Fever and Come Home are songs that are my personal favorites, but you will have to find yours when listening to this nice album.
Fat Wreck Chords
Joey Cape known for singing in legends Lagwagon, but also for his solo work just released his new solo album with Fat Wreck Chords and I listened and reviewed it for our zine.
Joey did fantastic songs solo acoustic and also acoustic renditions of Lagwagon songs and I love every one of his records. When Tony Sly passed away there was a big void in songwriting and creating fantastic punkrock songs. Now, that void is filled. Joey presents eleven new songs with heart, soul, melody, heartache. Fantastic title song is an ode not to give up when everything seems black and hopeless and piano parts besides guitar, drums, melody and Joey˙s voice make a totally full circle. Someone once said that solo Cape stuff are in fact dropouts from Lagwagon albums and this is not true, on the contrary material of this album is something far better written than most of Lagwagon˙s last albums, although not to get me wrong, I love Lagwagon very much. One of the highlights on this album is also I Know How To Run with so beautiful chorus and darkened vibe to the song. Not every song is acoustic, there are also full blooded punkrock songs like great Before My Heart Attack. One that deserves mentioning too is Possession with beautiful interplay between Joey´s and guest girl´s voices. Andalusia is in my opinion the best of the more guitar oriented songs on this album with mighty melody on chorus. Fall Down has that down and hopeless melody with guitar interwined with synth and topped with great vocal melodies. I would love to see Joey perform this stuff live, I am sure it is a unique experience. Superb record.
9/10
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