Buck Wild

Full Metal Overdrive (Lobster)
by Scott Hefflon

Buck Wild did a great job of covering Dokken’s “Alone Again” on the Mëtal Rüles comp, so it was with much anticipation that I played Full Metal Overdrive, especially with the humorous cover photo showing the band in full glam metal drag. So this here’s a punk, punkpop, or emo band (hard to tell from a cover song) that has an admitted weak spot for ’80s glam. Hey, it’s a good start. And that’s still my favorite thing about Buck Wild. While much of the record might as well be Lagwagon leftovers from a few records ago, many can’t seem to get enough of that stuff. And Buck Wild has some of those emoish tendencies (long, kinda boring bridges and transitions, a bunch of tuneless yelps here and there, not to mention the desire to be arty and musiciany, sometimes at the expense of an otherwise perfectly decent song), but again, many can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. But what, to these ears, makes Buck Wild interesting and worthy of attention is not a knee-jerk nostalgic joy of cheese metal, but an actual understanding of the subtle songwriting quirks that made that stuff kinda cool in the first place. If a little something makes you think, “hey, Cheap Trick coulda (and shoulda) written that riff,” it makes up for a few minutes of mediocre Lagwagonish melodies and rhythms. And an odd little ditty like “What to Do” is a welcome addition to any band’s record. A little banjo and whistling (think Queen’s “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon” and “Seaside Rendezvous” from A Night at the Opera – if you don’t have it, go get it, punk!), a bit of slowed down Green Day jumpiness, a few overwrought guitar powerchords (think Poison’s ballads, then try to block out the memory ASAP), and then it loops back, adding rainbow sprinkles as it goes. A great dorky little number, completely unself-conscious and uncategorizable.
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