Time Again – Darker Days – Review

timeagain200Time Again

Darker Days (Hellcat)
by Scott Hefflon

Do you like Rancid’s killer bass lines and rampage but find the vocals kinda dumb-sounding, not to mention they’re like, old and stuff? Time Again is a perfectly good opening band for Rancid, who’re a perfectly good opening band for The Clash. Like Social D, but again, they’re as old as yer dad (and come to think of it, they fucked your mom too). Time Again have the timeless, glorious street-punk-gone-bar-punk-rock grit we’re blessed to have in a day and age of airbrushed alt-boy band posers on the cover of “rock” magazines. This is the band’s second outing, produced by Mike Green (Paramore, The Matches, and hopefully some bands with balls too), and while I like the rockier side of punky bar rock (read: Swedish, or Scandinavian, like Gluecifer, The Bones, Backyard Babies or any of the bands who kinda sound like Dropkick Murphys, but chose Cheap Trick and Guns N’ Roses over SoCal punk), these 14 songs move right along, without a boner in the bunch. Keep in mind that this stuff is as easy to write as your signature on the credit card receipt for that 18 pack of PBR, but let’s face it, catchy punk doesn’t have to be genius, it has to get yer blood flowing and the lyrics have to make some semblance of sense. Or at least repeat something simple a whole lot so you can chant along.
(www.hell-cat.com)