2002 hasn’t been a bad year for indy rock or indy punk. CDs by Sleater-Kinney, Bright Eyes and The Gossip have all come out this year and become instant favorites of mine. Those CDs are more on the rock side of the indy spectrum though, I feel like I’m missing out on what’s new in punk.
So when the opportunity rose to review a new punk CD I thought it’d be a good chance to hear some new music and catch up a little. After all “punk’s not dead,” right?
If Subincision’s new CD “Jingo” is a good example of what new punk sounds like, then it should be dead. This CD is boring, unoriginal, repetitive and the lyrics make you feel dumber just listening to them.
The CD cover is a drawing of a soldier being impaled by barbed wire and the inside and back cover are filled with pictures of the American flag, gas masks and guys in camoflague. However, only one of the songs on the CD is close to being political, and even that song is just the obligatory “Sept. 11 sucked” song that so many bands seem to be doing. Actually, Subincision sounds like it’s trying to be The Vandals or The Queers by imitating the quirky funny lyrics that those bands are known for. But they just come off as dumb.
In the song “Endless Summer of Our Love Together,” the singer sings about dating his girlfriend’s mom, then going on Jerry Springer. In “Witch” he sings about killing a girl he had a one-night stand with, because he thought she cursed him. Those songs sound like they could be funny just from hearing the premise, but they aren’t.
In “Kill the Principal” he sings, “me and Johnny never get girls, we stay at home and hate the world, maybe we’ll kill the principal.” It’s just boring.
The singer’s voice sounds like he’s trying to be an old gravelly rockabilly singer but can’t quite get it right.
The music itself is uninspired, sounds like it’s been done a million times before, maybe in the form of the poppier Dead Kenedy’s songs or a little bit like Suicidal Tendecies or The Hellacopters. Don’t get me wrong, those are all good bands and all of them made good songs. Songs so good that they didn’t need to be redone or copied.
