Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
thank God for pennywise, January 9, 2006
I love this band. A true punk rock band to the bone, their formula has proven more than successful over the years, they have stuck to their roots and haven't changed for anyone or anything. It's bands like pennywise that give us hope and make us realize that worrying about bands like simple plan and good charlotte flushing punk rock down the jon is not worth it. Those bands will come and go, but bands like pennywise, bad religion, strung out etc will never die. Long live Pennywise!
The album reminds me alot of Land Of The Free...all the songs are brilliant, to me Stand Up and Best I can are probably the coolest. The thing I love most about this album is that the lyrics are generally all about hope, not giving up, and a fight worth fighting for. Thank you Pennywise for keeping it real!
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Maybe IT Doesn't Deserve to Die, January 6, 2006
I think it was 1987 when Jello Biafra said "punk's not dead, it just deserves to die". That was before the movement suffered the indignities of Blink 182 and their long list of imitators. From the late 90's until recent times, that statement seemed more and more true. Then some good things happened. Pennywise's `From The Ashes', Bad Religion's `The Empire Strikes First', Social Distortion's `Sex, Love and Rock and Roll' to name a few.
Pennywise's newest (and arguably most technically ambitious) is the most recent of those good things. With `Unknown Road', PW came into a sound. They really haven't lost it since, although I would say `Straight Ahead' and `Land of the Free' were a drop on the shaky side (hey, you try losing an original band member to suicide and keeping it together). With `The Fuse', they open with their signature sound (the one we knew from Unknown Road, Full Circle, About Time) and don't let up. The riffs are fast, but well placed. They have guitar solos, but avoid that boring heavy metal trap. The bass guitar does more than mirror the rhythm guitar.
Lyrically, at first listen, I thought `The Fuse' was a bit of a letdown. I did not like `Competition Song' where the lyric "We compete until we die" is rhymed with "We compete until we die". I also felt the short song titles were poorly chosen. It almost felt like they had a musically phenomenal album produced, but rushed the lyrics. However, after a few listens and memorization of the album (somehow I can learn every lyric to an album in three listens, but have no idea what I had for lunch 3 hours ago) I realized the lyrics were actually pretty pointed and very timely. Major standouts are "Fox TV" and "18 Soldiers", but there are no bad songs, and after a few listens, "Competition Song" is pretty catchy.
In a time when you can go to the mall and buy an `Exploited' shirt from a kid with a mohawk and a `Good Charlotte' patch sewn onto her jacket, it's nice to see some (dare I say) respectable punk being produced. At a recent PW concert (they played NYC with Bad Religion, Anti-Flag and Murphy's Law - incredible show) Fletcher asked if anyone remembered Fred Durst. He underscored the point that PW will never be as big as Limp Bizzkut (sp? I don't really care), but that PW has been around over 15 years and have a very large and extremely loyal following.
So buy this CD, listen to it a few times, give it a chance. If you don't like it, I'm sure the local corporate megalith music shop has the new Green Day CD on sale.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
pennywise continues their path of greatness, June 9, 2006
pennywise had always struck an odd chord in me because they never were truly amazing(about time is a diamond in the rough!) until they released "land of the free?" this album builds greatly on from the ashes musically, but lyrically i can trace it all the way back to about time, unknown road, and self-titled.
every song is able to be listened to without a skip button! this is even better than from the ashes..i dont know about land of the free? or about time, but its close!
it is great to hear and know that there is still a great so-cal surf/skate punk band pumping out fresh material. with offspring's mtv fame, rancid's punker than thou stance, nofx being transformed into a typical warped tour band, bad religion gaining an indie stance moreso than a punk stance, and epitaph's large endorsements of nu-emo, pennywise is a shining star and they basically do, like their one album states, rise "from the ashes."
keep it up pennywise!
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by Pennywise 
