Against Me! – White Crosses (8/10)

A raucous caricature of seasoned punk rock and roll, the follow-up album to 2007’s well-received New Wave is at times generic sounding but always unrelenting and unapologetic in its tone.

Against Me! – White Crosses (8/10)

A raucous caricature of seasoned punk rock and roll, the follow-up album to 2007’s well-received New Wave is at times generic sounding but always unrelenting and unapologetic in its tone.  The album’s eponymous first track White Crosses is a microcosm for whole the album, where the intuitively hostile lyrics “White crosses on the church lawn, I want to smash them all!” are misleadingly played out in the fashion of a jolly Irish drinking song.

Suggested listening environment:  Gym or pub.  If you can find a hybrid between the two, please contact me at b@moetrainstracks.com.

The Suicide Machines – Definition By Destruction 9.4/10 (Classic Review)

With tracks like New Girl, Hey Ska!, Face Values, S.O.S., and Break the Glass, TSM had written and performed the perfect punk ska album.  From 200 to 120 BPM, The Machines were a high energy, yet very danceable group who performed amazing live shows.

The Suicide Machines – Definition By Destruction (9.4/10)

Classic Review

The punk ska (or third wave ska) craze that seemed to dominate the early to mid-90′s was a scene that I was heavily involved in.  As a matter of fact, it’s where I truly gained a love for the music scene, and started my own band punk/ska/reggae band called The New Victims… Yes, the album is out there if you really want to find it.

With days reaching back to the inception of the Warped Tour, punk ska’s rambunctious and upbeat feeling had everyone rocking their two-tone wingtips and “skanking the night away.”  The Suicide Machines are a prime example of the raw embodiment of energy that ran through the scene back in the day.

Definition By Definition was on constant rotation in my CD player from the moment it came out, and it still gets regular play on my MP3 player to this day.  With tracks like New Girl, Hey Ska!, Face Values, S.O.S., and Break the Glass, TSM had written and performed the perfect punk ska album.  From 200 to 120 BPM, The Machines were a high energy, yet very danceable group who performed amazing live shows.  The upstroke of the ska rhythms fused seamlessly with the crunch of the Rickenbacker guitar to form perhaps the best punk ska album ever made.

Jason Navarro, Derek Grant, Royce Nunley, and Dan Lukacinsky created and broke the mold of what the ska core movement should have been.  Unfortunately, after quite a few lineup changes, The Suicide Machines disbanded in 2006.  However, in the 15 years that TSM was together, they were very instrumental in forming a flourishing music scene.

Gentlemen, I salute and thank you for all the years that you’ve given the scene.

- Moe