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Review: Rancid's new cringe-fest

I have lost all hope…

…and need to vent some frustration. I am dead tired. A delayed flight and arriving at my hotel at 2.30 PM was not part of the plan. Bad luck seems to be the theme of this holiday and to make matters worse, one of my all-time favourite bands has just put out the worst record in their career. Rancid’s …Honor is all we know is tedious to listen too, an uninspired, uncreative, cringe-worthy disappointment that is riddled with clichés.

I was very curious to see in what creative direction Rancid would take their new album…and it seems like they made almost all the wrong decisions. I was hoping that something of the musical diversity and experimental nature of the Tim Timebomb project would have influenced this album. That would have been interesting! But no such luck. Instead, the album bored me in an instant and after only listening to it a few times, I just couldn’t be bothered anymore. I have very little reason to put it on again. What the hell went wrong!? This used to be one my favourite bands!

Too many songs on this record are too over simplistic. There is too big an emphasis on the refrains, which are on the one hand so poorly thought-out that it gets annoying and on the other are being repeated ad nauseum, making them more annoying still. Case in point is the opening song Back Where I Belong, which should have been a celebration of the fact that the band is back after being absent for such a long time, but instead ends up being a cringe-fest. What on earth was Tim Armstrong thinking when he wrote the lines ‘I’m back where I belong/I’ve been gone for too long/and I’m back where I belong’?[1] Songs like Raise Your Fist, A Power Inside and Grave Digger suffer from the same condition and can therefore only be aptly described as ‘plainly stupid’. They seem to be intended for brain-dead sheep to sing along to: just one or two simple sentences with only little pretence of really being heart-felt and with hardly any thought-process behind them. These lyrics, in short, have less depth than a rain puddle in the street. Because these bad lyrics are combined with an excessive use of gang-vocals, I can’t help but get the impression that this antithesis of poetry was written by someone who would kill to live in Thatcher Britain, but who is not quite ready to undergo the economic hardship, nor is able to understand the cockney accent. The aim seems to be that the drunkest skinheads in the audience can still be able to join in and as a result, the record comes across a lazy attempt. I don’t want to sing along with the drunks, I want to get drunk just to forget this debacle.[2]

True, my review thus far has been very cynical and “slightly” pretentious, but not insincere. Nonetheless, I would not do Rancid justice if I wouldn’t point out that their new record also managed to genuinely surprise me in some pleasant ways. Believe it or not, but the record also has some real great songs with interesting sounds and nice hooks. Stylistically, Collision Course and Malfunction draw inspiration from old rock ‘n’ roll (and of course are given a typical Rancid twist). Malfunction is the definite highlight of the record, showing that Rancid luckily hasn’t lost the ability to convey positive energy like no other. Already dead also offers a nice change with a psychobilly sound. Rancid’s ska sound is unfortunately underrepresented on this record, but the two ska songs that are featured on this record (Evil’s My Friend and Everybody’s Sufferin’), do exactly what they need to do. These five songs show what …Honor Is All We Know could have been and leave me hungry for more.

There is still hope.

[1] This is almost like singing: ‘I am singing a song/and I sing a song’. The thought behind this song is sinful in and of itself.

[2] And I don’t even drink alcohol.

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Rancid - ...Honor Is All We Know (Drive Along Album Stream)

Tracklist

1. Back Where I Belong 2. Raise Your Fist 3. Collision Course 4. Evil s My Friend 5. Honor Is All We Know 6. A Power Inside 7. In The Streets 8. Face Up 9. Already Dead 10. Diabolical 11. Malfunction 12. Now We re Through With You 13. Everybody s Suffering 14. Grave Digger

#Rancid #...Honor Is All We Know #punk #punk rock #rock #alternative rock #indie music #album