REVIEW: The Gain, Ready Steady Smash (Mighty)
- Bill Holmes
Somebody set the clocks back twenty years at a lot of the record companies. Plenty of ska-pop-punk-wave releases coming out of the woodwork could easily be mistaken for their forefathers, albeit with better production. Some pay tribute, some add a new twist, and some....well, some just aren't as good. Where twenty years ago there certainly were enough bands with limited musical and/or vocal abilities, it was also a revolution of sorts - a backlash to complacency in music that literally erupted. Now, twenty years too late, record companies are tossing the wide net once again in search of that "new/old sound".
Steve Pilace writes all the two and three minute songs here (thirteen songs clock in at just over thirty six minutes). Musically there's a lot of adrenaline here, and the songs have more of a harmonic sense that fellow bangers Offspring, for example, but I don't know how to say this any other way than the blunt truth - Pilace is incapable of singing on key. I know a lot of people who are not technically great vocalists (Ron Wood, Bob Dylan, John Lydon/Rotten) who make up for any shortcomings through pure emotion. These vocals have nothing to offer - vapid, claws on the blackboard screeches - but if you read the lyrics you'll know that you're not missing anything. Not that moshers could care about such things anyway.
It's too bad, too. His guitar playing is rapid-fire Ramones riffing, and the rhythm section of Corky Pigeon and Joey Travers is solid. In better hands I'd enjoy hearing "Song For Saturday" (Corky sings this one, and he's off-key too!) or the title track. I wish there were some way to strip the vocals right off the record and play it as an instrumental disc. Like The Ventures on crack.
If you're looking for a soundtrack for a skateboarding movie, you've got the perfect sonic assault with no lyrical content to get in the way. They bang, they bash, hell, they even yell "Oi!" at the top of their lungs. But even their best songs, like "Month Of Mondays" and "So Low" are just Green Day without the charm and without the wit. If you're looking for punky pop and rock music worth your dollars, there are far better places to drop your wallet.
