Bad Astronaut is another construction site of jack of all trades Joey Cape of Lagwagon fame. Fortunately this band does not just play simple melodic punk. Who needs two Lagwagons? They are rather situated somewhere between radio compatible American indie rock, No Idea records and The Get Up Kids. Guess I could have written a dozen descriptions just a vague but actually just as right as this one…
Some songs are rather straight rock music while others are calmer and more melancholy. They even got a cello sometimes. Sometimes there is cool keyboards that I like. The whole record is very diversified and far from being just one big monolithic block of the always same. And it is very far away from sounding like Lagwagon if anyone should expect this…
There probably is many people who will like this record. It is not bad. But for my taste it is too middle of the road, too tame, too safe. Not enough blood, tears and piss… I think this is pretty much what Mr. Cape wanted but for me personally this spunds rather boring. However I love the way there record titles play with alcoholism terminology. I just read “dry” by Augusten Burroughs. Great book and a must read for everyone into or gotten out of alcohol! And Fat Wreck still sends out promos without artwork so I don’t know if there is lyrics in the booklet or what they are singing about but according to the internet the cover is brown…
[jan]
www.badastronaut.com
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