album of the week: 7.1

The Slackers

The Great Rocksteady Swindle

Hellcat (2010)

why you'll love it: Still clever and consistent

why you'll hate it: lyrics are a big step down from last album

It's business as usual for America's finest ska band, The Slackers. Now this would normally be considered your standard above average album for the group; if not for their last outing, Self Medication (2008) being their finest. The Great Rocksteady Swindle now has the unfortunate responsibility of a follow-up album. Which is sad because it is still much better than most stuff they have released in the past decade.

The album has a great carefree "we play whatever we feel" attitude from song to song. Too carefree at times. The lyrics are frequently too awkward, almost as if they were an afterthought. That is until you realize that for this album, all members of the band contributed songs. A novel idea, but when the lyrics are bad, they are very bad. A lot of rhyming just to rhyme here, or in the case of a song like "Sabina", having no sense of rhythm. The Slackers still perform as well as ever here. It sounds they're right there in the room with you. Wonderful mellow coffeehouse ska. But I gotta say, coming from songs like "Stars" (off of Self Medication) to a song where they just sing "I'm livin' in a tool shed" over and over again is quite a disappointment.

But The Slackers never would have lasted this long if they didn't move at their own pace or only stick to what works. They aren't here to make hits. They're almost like private session musicians, who only serve at their own whims. There are a good chunk of great songs here, but hardly any that are all that memorable. If you can be bothered to stick around to the end though, you'll be treated to a wonderful anthem "The Same Everyday". The repetitive lyrics are a perfect fit on this song. Clearly the best on the whole album.

Musicianship has always been the strong point of this band. It's clever of them to play with the lyrics like this, something around their tenth album depending on if you count collaborations and dub instrumentals. To be honest though, it does the songs more harm than good this time out. Luckily, they play so well, the pros and cons even out.