Rise it up!
This self-titled album is the follow up to the hugely satisfying offering of 2006’s, ‘Dead American Radio’. Being on Hellcat Records and having had Tim Armstrong guest on the last album, Left Alone can’t get away from being compared to Rancid because both have a great street punk attitude with catchy punk rock’n’roll tracks. Left Alone’s 2005 album, ‘Lonely Starts & Broken Hearts’ was a little raw, and whilst being more catchy, ‘Dead American…’ had a few fillers and a couple of Ska tracks that didn’t feel that strong, here in, ‘Left Alone’ it’s as though they’ve taken any criticism on board, releasing a beat of a street punk album!
‘Spiked With Pain’ is the opening track and along with next song, ‘Branded’ set the tempo of what is to follow which are mid-tempo, catchy anthems with sing-a-long chorus’s about fighting and drinking. ‘Sad Story’ has thick keyboards and a chilled ska back beat that is very Tim Armstrong, leading nicely to ‘3 Bottles Of Wine’ that has a bass line as thick as your tongue after 12 hours of drinking, whilst chugging guitars and keyboard chords in the chorus give us another satisfying tune.
‘Porcelain’ is a story of love and could’ve been a left over gem from ‘Dead American…’, whilst ‘Bombs Away’ could well have been an Offspring song from their ‘SMASH’-era. It’s a nice simple punk song. ‘Brindle’ and ‘Self Made’ are very much like label mates, Time Again, whilst ‘Wishing Well’ brings us back to the bouncy punk with Elvis’s rasping vocals, and keyboards in the background. ‘Empty’ is a thoughtful song of contemplation and about being alone.
With a great guitar lick, and the ska back beat, ‘Low Fidelity’ plods along nicely, whereas we have a sharp injection of true punk rock in, ‘Do The Depression’ in the vein of The Casualties. The penultimate song, ‘Something For Nothing’ is another chilled, stripped down punk song with the chorus of, “Beautiful day // To end your pretty life // And I say”. The last song finishes on a high with some full throttle punk rock on, ‘Get Dead!’. The sing-along chorus goes, “It’s all over now!” and after such a great album I hope that this is not a vision of the future.
Left Alone could easily have hashed together another album with a handful of great tracks and then some fillers, however we have here 14 great tracks (and one intermission), and after listening to the album a few times the songs go from strength to strength. Whilst album mates, and other Rancid-sounding band Time Again released a lukewarm follow up album last year to their fantastic 2006 debut, I was starting to think that perhaps all of the good street punk albums had now been released, however not only is this the best Punk album of the year so far, but it is up in the top ten of all time. Great stuff!