Customer Reviews

This Sinking Ship

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

 

 

I first heard of Smoke or Fire when I was listening to a comp that had the 'Patty Heart' song on it and instantly fell in love. Some songs just instantly hit me and I had to have it. Lets just say I was not disappointed. The album rocks, from start to finish. There are really only a song or 2 that I would continually skip while listening in the car, but everything else just plain rocks and I definitely found a new band to add to my repertoire! Definitely suggest anyone who is into melodic punk rock with the slightest edge of hardcore to give it a listen.

Found out about them with them being on tour with Rise Against and they are great.. Especially if you dig some of RA's early stuff. Its a great up and coming band you should check out.

Is it catchy? Yeah. But why is that a bad thing? I read far too many reviews that say, "It's too clean...it's too catchy." Look, I love classic punk rock, there are some classicly written songs out there. But I'm not going to lie: I hate sh--ty recordings. All I do when I listen to Black Flag and old Misfits records is think, "If this were recorded today, it would be that much better." And why wouldn't you want a song to be catchy? Do you want to forget an album the second you're done listening to it? Is music meant to be analyzed to death or listened to and enjoyed?

I can't deny that Fat Wreck was putting out some bad releases (Randy, The Soviettes, No Use for a Name), but Smoke or Fire, along with Dead to Me and The Loved Ones, are beginning to put my faith back in the label.

"This Sinking Ship" is not a masterpiece, but it's a pretty damn good album. Check out the free MP3s for "The Patty Hearst Syndrome" and "Melatonin" on fatwreck.com and if you like those, you'll like this album.

Is it just me, or are all the bands on Fat Wreck Chords starting to sound the same?

The newest release from Smoke Or Fire, This Sinking Ship, sounds very much like other records I've reviewed for Fat Mike. It isn't that This Sinking Ship is a bad album. Jeremy's guitar chops are loud and bone crunching, Ken keeps a steady pace with his bass, new drummer Dave Atchison slams out a violent beat and Joe rants convincingly about the state of the world. It just sounds the same as latter day NoFX, Against Me, and other groups in Mike's stable.

Smoke Or Fire recreates that clean, highly produced punk that NoFX has turned to and I've got to say, it's getting a little boring. While all the songs on That Sinking Ship are well played, they don't have any character, no life of their own. They're just slickly put together songs with no anima.

Maybe it's just the geezer punk in me that really wants to hear drums that sound like cardboard boxes, and guitars played through kicked-in amps. The production was never the thing about punk. It was about the anarchy, the wildness, the unpredictability of letting yourself loose and slamming into your date while dancing. Somehow, it feels like This Sinking Ship is punk on Ritalin- controlled, well behaved, and nearly comatose.

Hopefully, their live shows are much wilder and if anything, This Sinking Ship has inspired me to find out. But as far as recorded music is concerned, This Sinking Ship is far too self-contained to merit a second listen by my acid-drenched brain. And that's too bad, because I appreciate how punk has survived over the years even if it has become a commercially viable product. So many modern groups have carved out creative niches in music because of punk, including the highly industrial Swans, the experimental rock of Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth, the entire grrrl rock movement of the eighties and nineties, pseudo-industrialists Interpol, and a whole slate of emo bands. So when I listen to something as staid as This Sinking Ship, I have to wonder "what happened?"

Of course, my opinion means nothing. If the highly crafted production values of This Sinking Ship drives the punk movement these days, than more power to it. But Fat Mike and his fellow label-meisters would do all of us with a long history of punk behind us a huge favor by releasing some in your face, screw everything and everyone music that slaps us in the face with its freshness, and makes us want to slam dance with our wives and children.