Nothing rhymes with Orange…
Punk teenagers, Orange, release their second album, ‘Escape From L.A.’ on Hellcat Records, the follow up to 2005’s debut, ‘Welcome To The World Of…Orange’. Led by charismatic singer/bassist Joe Dexter, who has a voice that has been described as a cross between Johnny Rotten and Pete Doherty, Orange play short catchy punk tunes that are simple and a little rough around the edges, but that succeed to be hard rocking and great.
First song, ‘Not Coming Home’ jumps straight into the band’s popular formula of chugging punk riffs, simple beats from the marriage between drums and bass, whilst Joe’s distinctive voice tears things up with the edgy non-tunefulness that has a way of sounding good. It’s a real punk rock anthem by numbers in the simply brilliant, ‘Get The Fuck Out Of My Way’, whilst there’s the slightly disjointed love song of, ‘Tiara’.
Whilst the songs are rocking in a sloppy punk way, there is a lack of stand out songs that the album before had in ‘Hollywood’, ‘Cool Mexicans’ & ‘Forgive And Forget The Past’. ‘What I’m Looking For’ has a go with it’s catchy chorus, whilst ‘The Last Punk In L.A.’ is slightly polished, but whether it’s right or wrong, I sometimes have to question whether or not a bunch of teenagers still under 20 know about life on the streets, especially dressed in high fashion clothes from Hollywood Boulevard’s Hot Topic, that looks to have been well washed and ironed by their moms.
‘Too Scared To Fall In Love’ is another song that if the vocals were more melodic, it could be more of a pop song, as could ‘Flying Without Fear’. The guitars are more melodic in the nice mid tempo, ‘The Only Ones’ whilst ‘Republicans’ could’ve been a cover of a Descendants song. ‘Stars’ is probably the best song on here with a real anthem appeal to it that is head and shoulders above the rest of the album. There are no bad songs on here but a few fall into that mediocre range.
Now there are some songs that you wonder why they haven’t been covered before, and then of course there are the ones that should never be covered. Orange have chosen to cover, Culture Club’s, ‘Karma Chameleon’, which comes across like a drunk bunch of lads on a karaoke machine, enough said. The final song, ‘St Awesome Strikes…’ is a strange narration-to-music story of a one man against the world, erm, you really have to hear it to believe it…
Orange are a band that have the potential to rock, and you can see why Tim Armstrong signed them up, however I guess I’m disappointed that the band have not grown and matured from their first to their second album like I thought that they would. Apparently they recorded the album in a two week period, and without sounding too unkind it also sounds like the songs were written in this same time period too. Orange will hopefully prove me wrong with a great third album, but up against other Hellcat Record punk acts like Rancid, Time Again, and Left Alone, they just come across as a bunch of nice guys having a go at being bad. Shame.