98 Mute

After The Fall (2002)

moldy

I have never really listened to 98 Mute before, except for a few tracks on the Punk O Rama compilations, so when I got this in the mail I had no real idea what to expect when I put it in my cd player.

Musically this band sounds a lot like Pennywise, which isn't that much of a surprise considering that they are from Hiroshima Beach, Jason Thirsk's brother is the drummer, and Fletcher produced and mixed the album. By that the songs are all characterized by driving skate punk, sing along choruses, lots of whoa and ahhs, social conscious lyrics, and a songs about being yourself. Most of the songs have some sort of political or social message to them. "Something In The Water" is about the spread of violence in society and the dissenatiaztionlack of response of the population to it. "While "Where Did It All Go Wrong" is about the fractioning of the punk scene, and how it used to be more united and stronger, and now there are so many factions that it leads to in scene fighting and competition. "Injection" is about drugs and the dangers that they posses. On "Small Minds" the band throws in some variety by using some acoustic guitars, which gives it a unique sound compared to the rest of the album, but I don't really think it works for them.

The multimedia portion of this disc is kind of cool, it has a band bio, link to their web site, some pictures and a video interview. At the end of the interview there is live footage of the band playing Black Flag's "No Values," which was probably my favorite part of this cd. Other cool things about it were the Minor Threat reference in "Same Old Song And Dance." I thought that this album was a pretty decent So. Cal skate punk, if you're a fan of Pennywise, H20, or somebody similar you will enjoy this.