Labels: No Idea Records
Review by: Joe Caithness
It’s not like a band you liked who did loads of records and broke up, to reform all of a sudden for one gig, and
then have an lp out within a year these days is it?!
Ahem, so anyway Small Brown Bike, probably the best band of that era of the late 90s early 2000s where chuggy,
melodic, mid tempo “post hardcore” was huge, the first real style of punk I guess I was ever “into it”, for what
it’s worth. It felt like everyone was trying to do something that sounded like and evolution on from 90s bands like
Jawbox and/or Fugazi and/or Quicksand, but a lot of bands seemed to have forgotten they had to write good songs too,
and a lot of that stuff hasn’t really stood the test of time.
Nowadays a lot of people hate on SBB because they changed their sound with every record, but I’d argue they pulled
it off, I mean when I heard “Nail Yourself To the Ground” I literally, without being OTT for comedy effect, thought
someone had sent me the wrong songs. But I learned to love it, along with their third album “The Riverbed”, which is
possibly one of the best sad chuggy punk records ever. The thing I like about this band, is that I could sit down
with a few cold Strongbows and pick out any of their records, and they would sound different, but one will always
suit my mood.
So, where the hell does this new thing fit in? It’s hard to tell on first listen. I havn’t heard their “comeback” 7
inch, so I don’t know what the zietgeist is surrounding their music right now, but I can tell you, that four songs
in, this is bigger and heavier than “The Riverbed”, but don’t expect the rugged and raw sound of their first two
lps, and blown out overdriven basslines, because there isn’t any. But it’s fair to say they are feeling fresh, this
isn’t crossing into the worn out alt country territority of “The Riverbed”. There is even hints of the heavier
chunky sound of the first two albums mid way through the album with “As We Go”. Six tracks in and it’s really
growing on me, I was expecting a 5 minute acoustic strum along to appear and kill the flow, but this actually a
proper rock album.
I mean there are a few WTF moments with phasing effects on drum fills(?!), to be fair though, the delay pedals only
come out briefly in the odd intro and breakdown, and it doesn’t feel out of place. And for people who care, this
record is produced and engineered by J Robbins, which makes total sense, and suits the band for obvious reasons. The
weakest track, is ironically the one they made a video for to promo the album, so don’t let that put you off.
This a pretty good LP, I wonder how it hold up aginst the others to being picked out in a years time. You will
probably want to skip “Just Bones” though, because it sounds like a teenage high school band doing a Chamberlain
cover (and I mean the really dodgy faux-Springstein era Chamberlain album). Why do bands let the guy who can’t sing
have their own song? This is definitely the Ringo song, the piano sounds like a joke.