Review: The Riot Before - Fists Buried In Pockets

I have a huge number of albums sitting on my computer, just waiting to be reviewed here for my beloved readers. A huge number. And I'm going to try to do all of them, in some semblance of chronological order. Most of them will be from last year and eventually we'll get to this year and we'll be all up to date and awesome. Today's offering will be the only album from all the way back in 2008.

I've talked about Richmond, Va's The Riot Before on the blog before, back in march. At the time I referred to them as "straight ahead, no-frills, punk rock." I've listened to a lot more since then and good lord was I wrong and my god did I undersell this band. TRB if you're out there, I'm so sorry I doubted you.
There's a huge amount going on in this album. To abuse a cliche, this isn't your daddy's punk rock band. The lyrics are subtle and articulate and the subject matters vary from the staunchly political 5 To 9 to the practically acapella, shouted love song that is I have My Books. Words Written Over Coffee even has harmonica and as tempting as is it to make a 'Gaslight Anthem watch your back' joke, I don't think there's a reason to sully this.
For those of you reading this and thinking "But Keegan, I'm a punk, I don't like acapella or Harmonica, is there something on this album for me?" Don't get your studded belt in a knot, the answer is a resounding yes. The bizarrely named They Rode On In The Friscalating Dusklight should provide your daily value of whoas while the "single" off the album We Are Wild Stallions is all the fist-in-the-air singalong anthem you could ever hope for, especially in its big final build. Rest assured that they'll get away with this.
In a final strange note this is the second album that I've really fallen in love with that has the intros to certain songs on the ends of the songs before them (the first was Lemuria's last full length, reviewed here). TRB does it best on Fists with the end of 5 To 9 which transitions into You Can't Sexy Dance To Punk Rock. Listened to back to back the first song ends, and then a kickin' drum intro starts, they throw in a little guitar feedback, and finally there's an equally kickin' pick slide (aren't they all?) and then the second song begins right at the verse. However, if you listen to Sexy Dance by itself, it just comes in at the verse and sounds all kinds of bad ass and awesome. Don't be surprised though, this is a bad ass and awesome album by a bad ass and awesome band. A band that maybe could play a show in the Worcester/Boston area soon??? Huh?

I'm going to post the video from the old post again, because you can never watch it too many times. Also I'm posting You Can't Sexy Dance To Punk Rock so you can all hear how awesome it sounds by itself. To hear how great it sounds with the intro, you're just gonna have to buy the album. Which you should probably do anyway.

The Riot Before - "We Are Wild Stallions!" from Dave O'Dell on Vimeo.

The Riot Before - You Can't Sexy Dance To Punk Rock

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The Riot Before

Review: Lemuria - Get Better

A while ago I got my hands on the most recent album by the Buffalo, NY indie/punk (Wikipedia's words not mine) outfit Lemuria. If you'll recall, it was at around this time that I began seriously rethinking my ban on female fronted bands and this album had a huge amount to do with it. This was one of those albums where at first I really just liked the opening track, the soaring love song, Pants. But as I gave the rest of the album more of my attention I realized that I liked almost every song on the album.

It's tempting to call it straight ahead boy-girl vocals pop punk (the good kind), but with a little something extra whether that's the male harmony vocal on Buzz, the gender-bending lyricism on Lipstick or the poignant narrative of Wardrobe (can you tell I really like this album?). I would recommend this album for fans of The Smoking Popes, The Unlovables, and maybe the Mr. T Experience (but without quite so much whimsy). And yeah I threw The Unlovables in there partly because they have a female lead singer, but at least I didn't do one of those FFO lists like "Rilo Kiley, Rainer Maria, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Metric." Because I hate those.



Lemuria - Pants
Lemuria - Lipstick
Lemuria - Buzz

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Lemuria