Customer Reviews

Swingin Utters

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A lot of people worried when the Utters became a Fat Records bands 5 years ago. Well, just goes to show that a band can overcome a record label if they're good enough. And this is one more entry in the Utters' amazing catalog of albums. Whereas Juvenile Product was their splashy entry into indie-punk stardom, and 5 Lessons Learned sorta looked inward and came off as a darker, more Social D'ish mature effort, this is an exploration of further territory than has normally been covered on Utters' records.

If you bought the Brazen Head ep, you were treated to a short, but unbelievably quality-filled assortment of great tunes. They ranged from the recently derived acoustic stuff, to the classic punk stompers, to uptempo and poppier moments. It was all Utters, but it was more diverse than their previous efforts. This self-titled cd is an extension of that. They break a little further from the typical street-punk mold and come off with a variety of great tunes that stand up to repeated listening.

The Utters have always done 2 things well. #1 They have a superior grasp on melody and tunefulness, in a genre where this often gets left behind for grunting and beer-soaked choruses. From their early mid-tempo stuff, to their harder NRA years, to the refined Fat era, they never lost sight of the SONG that needs to be there in any musical endeavor. #2 Bonnel/Koski have a superior knack for poetic, non-cliched, non-emo but still personal lyrics. They don't overdo it with sappy sentiment, instead preferring to tread the line of poetry delivered with an honest straight face that lets you decide the meaning. Top-notch songwriting!

And since countless bands have ripped them off since the Utters started early last decade, you would think that they would have been buried under a barrage of clones. Very much the opposite. With every limp talentless "street-punk" band that rears its ugly safety-pinned head, it gets more and more obvious that the Utters are doing something special, something with a lot more meaning than your average punk band.

Fat Records has the MP3 of the first song on this CD on their website, so feel free to listen to it in its entirety. And thankfully, the Utters have included their TKO hit Teen Idol Eyes on this album, which is great for fans who might not have turntables. I won't go so far as to say this is the Utters' London Calling, but it really seems like it. A sort of creative plateau that reaches and succeeds at grasping a variety of styles without seeming forced. Let's face it, the Swingin Utters could have gone on making anonymous-sounding "street-punk" records for an eternity, and people would have been satisfied enough with that. Let's be glad they didn't.

Imagine this scenario-- you go to the punk show, Lars Frederiksen plays and so do the Dropkick Murphys, what band could possibly be worthy of playing in between the two punk rock superbands-- the very underrated and supertalented Swingin' Utters. Swingin' Utters capture the essense of the street and put it into an album with they're anti-pop and highly melodic sound. This is good ol' punk with no need for categorization. Amazingly these old street punkers are able to pull off what few in the genre have- they pull of experimentation within punk rock, just check out "Watching the Wayfarers", a song that can be described as Mariachi Punk, and one listen gives you the feel that you are standing on the streets of big city California. Also on the album are punk rock anthems like "Pills and Smoke", "Taken Train", "Eddies Teddy" (for you Rocky Horror fans), "The Green Glass" which is sung by guitarist Spike Slawson (Me First and the Gimme Gimmes), and well, just about every track is amazing. The best aspect of this quality peice of work is that it takes no time at all to grow on you, one listen and you will instantly be singing along with the choruses of every song.

Im suprised alot of people dont like this installment to the swingin' utters already amazing discography, i would recommend this to anybody with an inquiring mind. I am into the street punk genre but to be perfectly honest there later installments are just great in comparison with there slightly bland earlier efforts (which are still good) so pick up a copy if you can and just listen to the utters perform at there best. One more thing the drumming is fine throughout the album which is good with the exception of "the note" its really out of time ...

After working with Darius and Johnny, I have come to the realization that these boys breathe life onto paper, spinning the yarn reminiscent of Charles Bukowski and English author, Alan Sillitoe. Tales of heartbreak, soul searching men, new fathers and trials and tribulations are presented here with such raw sincerity that this record hardly leaves my stereo.
The instrumentation is diverse and the group shatters the paradigms of "street punk"(Darius made it clear he hates this silly genre title) monikers.

These boys are punk rock Tom Waits songwriters.

This CD is good at times and has a few catchy tunes, but a lot of it is just fluff to fill in the holes. I bought this CD thinking that song from Tony Hawk would be on here, but it wasn't. Overall, its pretty good, but nothing excellent.