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For every summer, there's an album. It's that album that you connect your memories to. It might be hanging out with friends, it might be driving alone cross country. Whatever you have planned, on To The Confusion of Our Enemies, Texas's Riverboat Gamblers have created one of those albums that's destined to be one of this year's perfect summer albums.
Punk Rock... With Emphasis on The Rock
The band's influences are hard to nail down, for every song where you catch a guitar line that reminds you of Bad Religion, there is a song with a crunchy riffs that will remind you of something that might show up on an Alkaline Trio album. There are even moments, especially on the opening track, "True Crime" , where the band has a bit of a party rock sound, like something Andrew WK would put out.
The band is not afraid to rock, and not afraid to let the whole band shout along. As a result, songs like "Don't Bury Me...I'm Still Not Dead" and "The Curse Of The Ivory Coast" are upbeat punk anthems that seem to sound better the louder you turn them up.
High-Fi With Attitude
The album is slick and well-produced, and the sound is clean, but it never sounds over-produced. Rather than making the band sound too poppy or squeaky clean, the crisp sound allows that extra bit of crunchiness to come across. And in true punk formulaic fashion, the band has produced an album with only one track that breaks the three-minute mark, yet their songs are able to vary widely in those short bursts.It's pure punk, with a great sound.
And even as slick as the album sounds, it's obvious that this band is not made up of music industry darlings, either. On "The Biz Loves Sluts", the band paints a scathing picture of the music industry gang they've they've tried to avoid ("Don't you think a slicker sound would kinda like benefit you now?/Don't you know my only goal is to help somehow?/Don't you pay no mind if it's feeling wrong./Just close your eyes and make believe and play along"). It's a fine attitude for them; their sound is perfect in its well-produced roughness, and they really shouldn't tinker with a bit.
Rolling Stone named the Riverboat Gamblers one of the "Top 5 bands to break out at this year's SXSW". I'm inclined to agree with them - pick up this album and make it your soundtrack for this summer.
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