You Can’t Sexy Dance To Punk Rock – The Riot Before
This is a song to get you all hot and bothered. It’s got that gritty snarl you’d expect from Against Me! or The Lawrence Arms. And beneath that there’s a pulsing bit of punk rhythm like you might get from…well…Against Me! or The Lawrence Arms.
I heard about The Riot Before during that mad rush of year-end lists and recommendations that suddenly present me with dozens of albums I want to check out (this one courtesy of Can You See the Sunset…). So I picked up Fists Buried in Pockets, and while there are some weak moments, on the whole it comes across very well, walking the (sometimes fine) line between Americana and punk.
I know they probably get sick of being compared to Against Me! but there’s really no way to avoid it. Which is not a bad thing. It’s alright to sound a little derivative as long as you’re putting a lot of work into writing quality songs. Which they do here in spades. These are not a few throwaway punk-by-numbers tracks – the thought and effort are apparent in every little drum fill, in the rousing choruses, and in the lyrics which contain a great deal more complexity than you’d ever expect.