Music Review: Rancid back with a solid mix

Published: Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Gross and rancid: Vultures picking the sun-tenderized meat off of the drunken, bloated, and vomit encrusted body of fat Elvis.

Good and rancid: A band deriving its inspiration from the blue-collar workers and street- wayward pipe wielders whose orchestral rants have been coined "punk rock."

With tattoos of cobwebs marring their skulls, a panoply of albums and a devout following of hard-headed skins, Rancid's sixth full-length effort, Indestructible, is yet another jolt of unpasteurized, uninhibited waffle boots and bumpy knuckles.

Despite mediocre diversions such as The Transplants, consisting of Rancid singer/guitarist Tim Armstrong, Travis from Blink-182 and Lars Fredericksen, Rancid's other singer/guitarist and the Bastards, Rancid seems to be operating as a cohesive unit once more.

A healthy departure from Rancid's grayscale, proto-crust core project Rancid (2000) - which was a transgression from the third wave ska founding members Armstrong and Matt Freeman have practiced since the formation of their high school band Operation Ivy - Indestructible is an album of resurgence and tactful remembrance.

Whereas Rancid (2000) is the atavistic cry to demolition derbies and no-holds-barred mosh pits, Indestructible channels the serrated pop spirit of their 1995 release And Out Come the Wolves.

Nevertheless, Indestructible captures the grit and toil of society's misfit generation and wraps it in the spirit of hope.

Like all Rancid albums, Indestructible is epistolary storytelling set to music. But where earlier Rancid recordings can be generalized as either friendly or brackish, Indestructible oscillates between Sid Vicious-style bollocks and an enrapturing, dirty-cot romance.

With a vocal track apropos of The Pogue's Shane McGowan, a baseline that bounces with more intensity than a self-medicating trucker on white pony and accolade worthy choruses, Rancid has always operated in the space between class and crass.

While far from being the band's best work, Indestructible samples from the buffet of Rancid peas and carrots. Life Won't Wait experimented with off rhythms and blissfully obscure riffs, Rancid (2000) unleashed the band's hydra, And Out Come the Wolves was pacifying pop-mother's milk to dilettantes of angst - Indestructible is a Mai Tai mixed from the pool of rancid well drinks; it's sweet, but it still has that acrid burn.