Lighting success on darker days…
It’s been a tale of success for street punkers Time Again who release here their second album through Hellcat Records. Having only formed in 2004, they released a self-titled EP, before their debut album ‘The Stories Are True’ in 2006, which showed a band influenced by popular street punk bands, unsurprisingly label mates Rancid, who have Tim Armstrong appearing on the title track. This album also spawned the fantastic anthem, ‘Cold Concrete’ that earned the band the accolade of ‘Punk Song Of The Year’ on XM Radio, beating off songs by NOFX and The Casualties.
It’s a fair assessment to say that ‘Darker Days’ isn’t too far removed from the band’s debut album, but this is by no means a bad thing. ‘The Stories Are True’ was packed with great songs, and therefore ‘Darker Days’ is no different. There are the anthem songs, like, ‘Lookin’ Back’ which is the ‘The Stories Are True’ song with it’s simple catchy verse that showcases Daniel Dart’s vocals that jump out with a raspy punk rock swagger, and the in-your-face opener of ‘Day Like This’ that starts off with Mr Dart shouting out, “This is my world! This is my life!” and you know that whilst there are bands that like to think that they are a little punk rock, Time Again not only are punk rock, they live and breath punk rock.
The Rancid-esque formula of quick two-minute blasts of street punk are here for all to see, and there really isn’t anything wrong with that. However where Rancid favour dipping in and out of reggae/ska, whilst also having the odd hardcore punk song, Time Again choose to go largely with more mid-tempo punk that have catchy chorus’ bordering on anthems. ‘Soon It Will Be’ storms out whilst ‘One Way Or Another’ has a heavy bass line in the verses before the big shouting chorus.
Album title track, ‘Darker Days’ has been available on the band’s MySpace page now for a few weeks, and follows on nicely from the stop-gap song of, ‘Black Night’ which appeared on the Warped Tour 2006 compilation album. ‘Lucky’ is another of those songs that rips through with a shouting chorus and more balls than a free-beer-fest.
The quick fire slices of hardcore punk have been minimized here and the nearest that we get is, ‘You’re Goin’ Down’, although most of the songs here are frantic and fast paced like the great song ‘Gonna Get Mine’ which when I first heard it thought that the words were, “gonna kill mom…”.Ahem. ‘TV Static’ is another track of raw mid-tempo punk rock and is followed by the gun aware story of, ‘Shell Casings’, before the last track, ‘Outcast’ which is the best song on here. On the back of a big bass drum thumping in the background, the song is more classic punk rock, and perhaps it is that it breaks the Time Again mould just so slightly that makes it sound so good, giving it a sound a little more like The Loved Ones.
For Time Again fans, or even fans of street punk then this is a great album although it is only slightly better then their debut. It’s not quite as catchy as The Briggs, nor as diverse as Rancid, but is this really a problem? ‘Darker Days’ is a Hellcat Records album and although people often state that their band’s follow the same formula of trying to emulate Rancid, which if you hear the new album by Horrorpops or The Aggrolites, then you will know that this is not the case. I certainly see nothing wrong with a label knowing exactly what they like!