album of the week - 8.2

Big D And The Kids Table

Fluent in Stroll

sideonedummy (2009)

why you'll love it - Fresh new look on a struggling sound

why you'll hate it - too lovey-dovey, no punk

Going back to my favorite ska-punk bands from my high school / college days always gives me a guilty feeling of snobbery. I'm never quite sure who to blame for my disappointment. Concerning Reel Big Fish's last LP, I blame them for pandering to the 90's Hawaiian shirt wearing party wacky ska crowd. Less Than Jake jumped the shark, but then won their fanbase back with an LP that didn't do anything that stood out to me. It didn't feel like free expression, moreso an apology.n For that I blame the fans, who won't accept any kind of evolution from a band beyond their debut.

Which brings us to Big D. In 2005 I called How it Goes a modern day Destruction By Definition. Then they pushed their luck by having a go at a modern day Let's Face it called Strictly Rude. Rude had the lingo down, but didn't feel honest. Paint by numbers ska - which again sends my snobbery guilt levels off the charts.

Finally, we come to Fluent In Stroll, which contains no imitation, no pandering, and sounds like a free spirit! This may not be the most original piece of work I've heard all year, but this is the best direction a band like this could have taken. Big D manages to completely blow away all of the limitations they had by refusing to fall into the same old "we have to appease the core fanbase" trappings, AND without nerfing their horn section.

It's a chilled album, but beams with joy and positivity. The lyrics do tend to fall too far into relationship territory, but it keeps a good pace with the music and only once made me roll my eyes ("Chin Up, Boy!" is the kind of "there's somebody for everyone!" swill you'd expect to hear in an after school special). This album is total morphine compared to old Big D, but you'd have to be uptight as hell not to enjoy the grooves here. They're still danceable as ever.

The album is backed by a handful of female vocal harmony called "The Dollies". I don't know if they tour with these ladies, but for this album, it sounds great. This album does everything right that Strictly Rude did wrong. They dropped the checkered suspenders and carved their own niche. Fluent in Stroll isn't some masterpiece of creative evolution, but it's a great piece of positive vibes for a band that's been stuck in reruns.