Wow. This is.. Uh..Sublime With Rome is the legendary ska-punk band Sublime formed in 2009 without Bradley Nowell (due to obvious reasons), and Rome Ramirez on vocals and guitar. They started out by just touring and playing Sublime covers, now, in 2011, 15 years after the death of their original frontman, they've come out with this album.
I am not impressed.
Rome's voice is okay, but he is no Bradley Nowell. Not by a long shot. His voice isn't bad, but it doesn't have the rawness or emotion of Bradley's voice. I'm trying so hard not to compare them, but Rome is in Bradley's band now, replacing him! Eric and Bud are back, with them back on their respective instruments of bass and drums. Eric has some smooth basslines, not as quite good as he used to be able to put 'em out, but he's trying. Bud's drums don't have quite the same feel they used to, and I can't put my finger on it.If Bradley could see them now, I think he'd be very happy with them continuing Sublime, and performing some okay covers live, but dissatisfied with their new direction. Their covers live were okay, but their new songs just prove that Bradley was the brains behind Sublime. There's only one song on here I even mildly like, and that's the opener 'Panic' which basically just sounds like 'Seed' on the last album but tweaked a bit. When the only song that can grab my attention is the opener, you know something's wrong.
Every song quickly loses its edge when it gets to the chorus, because you know that's how the rest of the song is going to go, because these songs rely so much on the choruses. That's like a lot of music, yes, but no chorus here particularly grabs you at all, and some are just laughable, like 'Paper Cuts' which sounds like some teenagers in a terrible recording studio trying to record something in the style of Sublime's hardcore punk but failing terribly at it, while shouting lines about life that's basically repeated throughout the whole album. "Oh life sucks but I'm getting through it" is a lot of their lyrics to put it basically, and it's almost like I get the urge to say "Rome, you're an uninteresting person. No one cares." And it sucks because honestly, quite a few old Sublime songs centered around that, but Bradley Nowell was so emotional and genuine that you could feel like he wasn't faking it.
Some tracks even leave you wondering "Did I just listen to this?", but no, no you didn't. Just a lot of the songs sound painfully the same, or sound like terrible rehashes of older Sublime songs, with none of the honesty, love, or emotion that the originals had.
Quite a few tracks on here are just boring. 'Dynamite' sticks out like a sore-thumb on the deluxe edition, it's 7 minutes of basically the same thing over and over, and all of the tracks are basically the same, but less in length. 'Lovers Rock' is annoying as hell with the way Rome keeps repeating himself, and another song on the deluxe edition (that I'm linking to, don't worry) 'Safe and Sound' is a freakin' dubstep song. Sublime dubstep. What even is this. This is terrible.
Also, to add insult to injury, Wiz Khalifa is on one track to do a quick rap. He just doesn't fit in with Sublime (or what's left of them) and it just sounds unnatural.
This is all coming from a huge Sublime fan with an open mind.
The songs are unmemorable mostly, and none stick out like they could even potentially become Sublime classics. Maybe they'll grow on me with time, but as it stands now, I really strongly doubt it. I'll stick to their older records. I am very disappointed.
Rome has some talent, and I know Eric and Bud do, but this is bad. Rome can go places without Sublime, and Sublime needs to just lay down and die for good. Sublime just isn't Sublime without Bradley Nowell, and nothing can change that.
3/10
Recommended Track(s): Panic
