River City Rebels - No Good No Time No Pride

  by Jonjo McNeill

published: 24 / 3 / 2003

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The American slant on ‘punk’ in the 90’s saw bands like Green Day, Blink 182 and the Offspring cross over into the mainstream. Whilst enjoying commercial success, punk purists shook their head in disbelief that these pretenders were placing themselves under the same banner as the Sex Pistols and the Clash. You’d find River City Rebels under the ‘Punk’ section in your local Virgin, but are they more of the same ‘posh’ boys with loud guitars and punk replica attitude bought in their local mall? After listening to their album, I’d say not. These boys are angry, and they’re gonna tell us about it in the loudest, most aggressive way possible. Whilst some songs on here (especially ‘Aborted’ – “I should’ve been aborted”) sickened me to the stomach with their dumb lyrics and childish sentiments of ‘rebellion’, there are some moments of true punk-rock greatness. ‘Such a Bore’ reminded me of ‘Strictly Hardcore’ by Gold Blade, and made good use of the band’s in-house brass section; ‘Drunken Angel’ has a great sneering vocal from frontman Dan O’Day; and ‘US Crush’ has fantastic anti-capitalist lyrics (as well as the excellent ‘F*** your US pride / You were born into it’). So much modern punk music is dumbed down rock or simply pop with a nose ring, but River City Rebels believe in their cause, and shout about it with conviction. ‘No Good, No Time, No Pride’ is a good record, not a great record, but it stands out from their peers simply because here is a punk band with a cause. It’s about time the punks claimed their music back from the wannabes, and this is a fine start, even if they do all look like they escaped from a zoo.

Track Listing:-

1 Such A Bore
2 Aborted
3 Drunken Angel
4 Life's A Drag
5 No Time
6 No Good
7 Pass The Basket
8 Johnny Aka
9 Rotten Brain
10 Us Crush
11 No Pride
12 Mutiny

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