Until It's Normal: A Review Of The New Album From Fake Names (Refused, Minor Threat, The Faith, Girls Against Boys)

This is the sort of record where you know it's going to rock before you play it. I say that not just because I've seen this band live, but because I know who the players are in Fake Names. The group is Brian Baker (Minor Threat, Dag Nasty, Bad Religion), Michael Hampton (S.O.A., Embrace, The Faith), Dennis Lyxzén (Refused), Johnny Temple (Girls Against Boys, Soul Side), and Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket From The Crypt, OFF!). The record is Punk Ruins and it's a wonderful racket!

"Until It's Normal" roars out of the gate to start things off on Punk Ruins. Vocalist Dennis Lyxzén really sells this one. However, a case could be made that "Good Old Days" is even better. On this one, things sound a little like the heavier side of Cheap Trick, with Dennis adding a yearning touch to his vocals which recalls that of Robin Zander. It's a blast of a track, and a catchy one too. Elsehwere, the title track sounds a lot like some of the D.C. bands a few of these folks were in, as well as Brian Baker's stuff in Bad Religion on the other coast. It is, like many of the selections here, a song that neatly blends volume, power, riffs, and energy in the service of punk rock. In the Nineties, stuff like this would have been all over the radio. Similarly, "What I Tell Myself" is a damn radio hit waiting for a world where radio is cool enough again to play this kind of thing.

Old school in attitude and modern in approach, Fake Names are a band of veterans with the juice still running through their veins. Punk Ruins? Hardly, these are punk treasures. Nothing on this album is a dud, and each number rocks in the sort of fashion you'd expect going in. More than solid, Fake Names rawk admirably well here on the recommended Punk Ruins.

Punk Ruins by Fake Names is out today via Epitaph Records.

[Photo: Epitaph]