Random55
Successful Attempts at Failure
Sinister Muse
Is punk dead? That's a question often asked. Since former indie punk rockers Green Day and the Offspring landed on the pop charts over a decade ago, the original anti-corporate stance of punk has been seriously questioned. However, nobody seems to remember that the three most respected and influential punk groups of all time --the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and the Clash -- were signed to major labels. Nevertheless, the "punk is dead" crowd do have a point in terms of selling out stylistically. After all, Blink-182 and their peers are hardly confrontational, merely giving their sophomoric bubblegum grunge a little dose of snot. Random55, on the other hand, are true punks.
Random55 sing from the same boulevard of broken dreams as Green Day, but with a more grounded and stinging sense of reality. Maximilian Labriola's voice is rough and incendiary, not annoying; he truly sounds like someone with a chip on his shoulder and not just a court jester. On "Nobody's Fool," Labriola offers a jolting alternative to the merciless self-pity of today's commercial punk rock as he finds the strength within himself to not take any more shit and move on: "And you, you can't hold me down/ I'm too strong to be bound."
This six-track CD rockets past the speed limit yet it retains a strong sense of melody, a la Bad Religion and Social Distortion. "Hollow Prayer" hits the pedal to the floor like a brake-less car but it'll also make you tap your feet, and probably not since Husker Du has there been a combination of metallic crunch, brevity and toe-tapping impact as effective as the absolutely slamming "Bulletproof."
