Bar Tape are from Dublin, Ireland and this is their new release. What do we have here? These guys play a mixture of Californian fast skate punk with nineties influences and emotional punk in the vein of The Menzingers or Off With Their Heads, with rougher vocals, I would even say this rough yet melodic voice adds more to the drama and intense of the songs themselves. Like I said there are some faster songs like One Way East or St. Peter’s College Drop-out for example, but the real jewels on this one are mid tempo emotional hitters like Hindsight 20:20 which is one of my favorite songs on this album. Also, Subscription Glasses is one of my highlights on this one. Like you probably guessed from the provided song titles lyrics are personal with a dose of humor and irony thrown in for good measure. Great album, I am happy having discovered this band.
Colorsfade from Canada are no strangers to the pages of this webzine, because we reviewed their previous record here, also featured their videos and singles prior to this new album out with People of Punk Rock Records. This new one contains ten songs of beautiful and fast melodic hardcore punk, skate punk, leaning more on modern side of this genre, with lots of technically well executed song parts, changes in tempo but, basically, yes, it is that old school nineties melodic punk hidden here in between and warms your heart. Music is fast and reminds me with all this speed of Spanish Adrenalized or UK’s The Human Project in some songs. Although Colorsfade have less metallic influences than mentioned band. Vocals are great, not whiny or snotty, just right with all harmonies and sometimes screamed backing vocals like in awesome ‘Roll Of The Dice’ and having listened to that great melancholic guitar solo melody of ‘Your Remedy’ almost brought tears of joy to my eyes and warmed up my old punk heart. Lyrics are personal, but also relate to state of the world and political situation this planet is right now like in ‘Rise To The Challenge’, another favorite of mine, so that is another plus. This is great fast punk rock and I recommend this one.
I had great expectations from this book when I bought it because it features some of my favorite punk rock bands like Bad Religion and Nofx, plus I love Californian punk so I was interested how some of the albums got so popular, what drove Green Day and Bad Religion to major label, how Epitaph Records rose from nothing to one of the biggest independent labels, rise of Fat Wreck Chords, plus some of the anecdotes behind the scene that I did not know and were interesting to read. The book also nicely describes how Rancid formed and wrote some of the best and most iconic albums in punk rock of the nineties. Pennywise are also featured along with one or two great stories about their legendary guitar player Fletcher Dragge and his exploits. It also shows some of the nastier sides of label business, a nastier side of Brett Gurewitz, Bad Religion guitarist and Epitaph Records founder and owner, like also war between Green Day and The Offspring and how it started, so this one is indeed a great read if you like punk rock and history about some of your favorite albums.
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