The Casualties

On the Front Line (Side One Dummy)
By Duke Crevanator

Am I allowed to coin a new musical term? Let’s assume I am… Allow me to introduce you to my first example of “I realized how horribly corrupt the world was when I was 14 and I got all idealistic and stuff and thought Marx was right and the working class gets the shaft and rich people suck and pigs are bad so I write really adolescent words and stuff about how the whole thing should be overthrown and I never was able to move beyond, ya know, the adolescent lyric parts PUNK ROCK.” Jesus Christ, where is Jello Biafra when you need him? He said more politically in one Dead Kennedys song than all these Exploited wanna-be bands’ entire discographies COMBINED. Hell, I’m sure this pablum works on the young kids, which I guess is their audience, but Dead Kennedys sold lots of records to kids as well. Maybe kids these days are too fucking stupid to understand irony and big words. For example, I sure as hell bet most of them don’t even know who Pol Pot was. So bands like The Casualties may be forced to spoon-feed their message to them.

What sucks is that these guys are all very talented. It’s a great sounding record. Unlike most bands of this ilk, even though Jorge screams the lyrics, he has the talent so you can actually understand what he’s singing. This is an enhanced CD as well, with three videos and a photo gallery. I’m just so sick of this beat-you-over-the-head style of punk. Judging by the plethora of pics of these dudes in the CD jacket, I’d say they seem a tad too focused on their hair instead of their lyrical message. That’s unfortunate, because their message could be better stated to the kids via intelligent lyrics instead of way-cool mohawks.
(PO Box 2350 Los Angeles, CA 90078)