1995 : I was 12 years old and I listened to Nirvana all day long like all of my friends at school. With the release of Green Day "Dookie" and Offspring "Smash" I started to listen to punk rock like millions of other kids and later in the year I bought records of Bad Religion, Pennywise and NOFX, but these were probably the only bands I knew at that time. My friend Marco who is 2 years older than me, gave me a mix tape so I could know other bands. The mix tape had songs from a lot of cool bands like Face To Face, Rancid, Social Distortion, Circle Jerks, Lagwagon, Descendents and there was this band called Ten Foot Pole that had two songs called "Broken Bubble" and "Old Man". I fell in love with these songs. I bought the record "Rev", I loved it and TFP became one of my favourite band. Two years later I heard that a new Ten Foot Pole record was coming out and that Scott was no more the singer of the band blablabla (you all know the story). I didn't knew what to expect since I liked Scott voice so much and I was prepared for being let down, but I bought "Unleashed" anyway a few weeks after it's release. I was amazed ! I even liked it better than "Rev". Sure maybe Dennis doesn't sing as well as Scott, but I don't know, I liked his voice, and the songs were just so good.
2002 : I'm now almost 20 years old. Since the "mix tape" years, a lot of thing have changed. Marco now listen to hip-hop and Techno because so does his new friends . As for myself, I play in a band, I have over 250 records, you can find me at almost every show in my town and Ten Foot Pole is still one of my favourite band. I even still have that sticker that came with "Unleashed" on my wallet since the day I got that record. So yeah ok, nobody probably f*ckin' careâ¦.All right, The new album is called "Bad Mother Trucker". It's their first album with Victory Records and their first album since 1998 ("Insider"). A lot of things have changed with the Ten Foot Pole's line up since 1998, but I don't want to write their whole bio since that time, so just go at http://www.tenfootpole.com/bio.htm and read if you don't know.
I picked this record the day it came out and wrote the two first paragraphs the same day. I was a little disappointed about my first listen of the record, so I decided to wait a month before writing the rest of the review and see if the record would grow on me. I was not wrong, "Bad Mother Trucker" is one of these record that really grew on you. It sure ain't the best TFP record but it's still good and catchy as hell. For unknown reason, I also really enjoy that record when I'm on the road. The record is kinda fast and poppy, label them pop-punk or poppy-skate-punk or whatever you want to, I think that "Bad Mother Trucker" is one of the best record of that genre I heard in a while. My favourite songs on the record are "Happy Daze", "Armchair Quarterback", "Nova Scotia" and "Fall In Line" but they could be different songs for other people because there is no songs that really stand out of the album, there is no "Broken Bubble", "John", "Damage", "ADD" or "Getaway". The songs of "Bad Mother Trucker" just all melt perfectly together. On a side note, there is a song on the record called "Shelter" that is singed by Kevin Ruggeri, the new drummer of the band, oh and the record also comes with a TFP sticker. My only complain about the record would be that there is not really a stand out track, and that the record is only 12 songs clocked in 29 minutes, which is kinda short for a band that didn't released anything since 1998. In overall it's a good record and you should enjoy it. Maybe you won't like it the first time you will listen to it, but give it a try and let the record grow on you. So if you're a TFP fan or if you like good pop-punk and you are disappointed by the new Vandals album, go make yourself a favour and get "Bad Mother Trucker". I'm done with the review now, so feel free to bash it and tell the world how much you hate TFP since Scott quit the band.