Eight years separated the release of
Social Distortion
's misguided
White Light, White Heat, White Trash
and their next studio album, 2004's
Sex, Love and Rock 'n' Roll
, and a fair amount happened to the band in that time. Most notably,
Dennis Danell
, who had been the only constant in the band's lineup besides leader
Mike Ness
, died in 2001 at the age of 39, and on a pair of solo albums
Ness
began digging deeper into the roots music that had long informed his style. After confronting the grief of losing one of his best friends and exploring the less muscular side of his musical personality,
makes it clear
and his bandmates were ready to turn up the amps and make some noise, but while musically this is firmly in the So-Cal
punk
mode of their best work, lyrically this music reflects the mind of a more mature and thoughtful
. Much as
dealt with the toll his years of drug abuse and casual violence had taken on him on the albums
and
Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
,
finds him pondering the stuff of genuine adulthood -- love, relationships, and looking to the future while trying to reconcile the past.
"Live Before You Die"
celebrates life in the moment without giving in to hedonism,
declares "I'm gonna trade in my old ways for a new shot at life" in
"Faithless,"
"Footprints on My Ceiling"
tells the story of a man who has come to the realization that he has to accept his feelings if he's ever going to be loved. Some might think this means
is going
emo
on us after all these years, but in context these songs become the work of a man who's strong enough to know his own weaknesses and is struggling to become a better man by working through them, and the music -- with
ably assisted by
John Maurer
on bass,
Jonny Wickersham
on guitar, and
Charlie Quintana
on drums -- is potent, hard-hitting
rock & roll
with real heart and soul behind it.
shows that
have held onto what made them great while growing and changing in the best ways, and the result is one of the best albums this band has made to date. ~ Mark Deming