Excellent question posed in the album title. Just why do they rock so hard? Will we ever know the answer? Aaron Barrett and his negative, sarcastic friends are back for another album to show the whole world how full of themselves they can be, and how hateful they can finally be about people who wronged them now that they're famous.And yes, they rock hard while doing it.
The line-up is identical to the last album, with Aaron Barret on guitar and lead vocals, Grant Barry and Dan Regan on trombones, Tavis Werts on trumpet and Flügelhorn, Scott Klopfenstein on trumpet, back up vocals, and occasional small lead vocals, and Matt Wong on the bass.
Just as you've probably come to know, if you've been reading my reviews, Reel Big Fish is a ska-punk band with very dark, hateful, depressing, sarcastic, and funny lyrics hidden under happy music. Aaron Barrett is an odd fellow with a hatred for people, and it's funny to hear what extremes he can take his lyrics to.
On this album, they've actually grown a bit out of their ska-punk box, and incorporate elements of pop, metal, reggae, and hip-hop on selective songs. One stand-out is 'Big Star', where it starts out quiet, with Aaron Barrett playing the acoustic guitar, and someone playing the keyboard, but launches into loud guitar riffs halfway through the song, the piano kicks in, and he gets the whole band to sing profanities as if it were a triumphant bar-room angry sing-along. And who could forget 'The Set-Up (You Need This)', a ska song with a chorus parodying boy-bands, along with an accompanying music video?
Aaron was a hateful little man on the last album, and that hasn't changed at all. He's still mad at people, possibly the same people that inspired him to write the songs on the last album. Once you scar that man, he will never let it go, as he sings in 'Brand New Song' about an ex-girlfriend, "I've got a new girlfriend, she is so lovely lovely. I've got a new ex-girlfriend, she is so fat and ugly."
On a less hateful note is the sad Reggae sounding 'I'm Cool', which has some of my most favorite lyrics of all time:
"There's so many fish in the sea
And they all look like me
Just a little tiny fish, that's all I'll ever be."
Of course, in these songs, they're catchy. That's something RBF has perfected, catchy ska-punk songs. They've learned more about performing as a professional band since the last album, and it shows. The music communicates with itself even better than it did before, with Matt's always smooth basslines going hand-in-hand with the horn section, and Aaron being more comfortable sharing vocals with Scott to the point where he even let Scott sing lead on a few small sections of some songs, and you can hear his vocals better, so instead of him always just backing up Aaron, you can hear him and Aaron singing at the same time, but be able to pick out their voices separately.
What brings this album down is the fact that while it's a good album, yes, comparable to their last effort, 'Turn The Radio Off', it doesn't have quite the same atmosphere that made people fall in love with RBF before. TTRO had this atmosphere that basically said they were having fun, trying to make it, and a sort of underground sound. This album has a kind of vibe to it like they're getting a little full of themselves, which may be intentional, as they act like they're famous, take even more shots at people, and break away from their original sound. They no longer sound like the old RBF that'd perform in people's garages and the sort, but an RBF that you could see pulling off actual concerts. While some people like this, and I'm not saying I dislike it, really, just it doesn't feel like the RBF we had come to know and love.
Another thing being that while the old album had its share of negativity, it was hidden in the lyrics so for some people, they could miss it entirely. This album has so many songs about hating people in some way, that it shoves the gimmick of "Hey! Look! We're angry at someone!" down your throat and expects you to not get tired of it. It feels like Aaron is taking the chance to take a dump on people from above since he's finally famous, as like a way of saying "You treated me badly, now I'm gonna tell the whole world!" on quite a few songs. While I am interested in Aaron's anger and sarcasm, I miss when it was more passive than in your face. Also, this just be personal preference, but I don't like how they chose to end the album with an instrumental song. There's nothing wrong with the way they play their instruments, it just isn't very RBF-like.
If you're an RBF fan already, this needs to be in your collection. There is no going around it. If you're a newcomer to the fish, it's hard to pick which you should start out with, 'Turn The Radio Off' or this, but honestly, I'd recommend both in that case. They both have a very different atmosphere to them, and almost feel like different bands.
7/10
Recommended tracks: Brand New Song
