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The Bomb

Indecision (2005)
Thick Records

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Contributed by: Aubin
(others by this writer | submit your own)

Published on October 28th 2005

It's not really fair. You play in one influential hardcore/punk band for about a decade and no one will ever let you forget it. Even when you finish recording your second album in your new band, writers are forever making comparisons to that band. To that end, I should apologize to Mr.Pezzati, because I was a big fan of Naked Raygun and will similarly fall into the trap.

To be fair, Jeff Pezzati's participation makes it difficult to separate him from his seminal band, and there is certainly a healthy share of his trademark “whoahs” and even some tracks that could have come from the less experimental era of that band.

Conversely, it should be noted that unlike Raygun, which was a melodic hardcore band, the Bomb is a melodic pop-punk band, drawing as much from the Descendents and Morrissey as Raygun did from Minor Threat. Furthermore, on this, their second album, they again take on relationships more than politics. The Bomb's first release was 2000's Torch Songs, which was a tight, melodic bunch of pop-punk songs. However, because of a lineup overhaul and nearly five years between recording, it's hard to compare them even to that.

As with Torch Songs, Indecision doesn't yet allow Pezzati to step out of the shadow of Raygun, because while the bulk of the album positively rips, when the band attempts to slow things down it loses much of its magic. Tracks like the incendiary “Burn It All” rekindle much of that same power as does “Up from the Floor," but the lengthy ”Never Want to See You Again“ seems oddly out of place after a barrage of powerful tracks.

A similar weakness afflicts ”Won't Apologize“ and doesn't relent until the upbeat ”Turned On“ sends the band back into fifth gear. But frankly, this lessening of the tempo in the middle of the album is disappointing, but not a deal breaker because the rest of the album succeeds admirably at taking that old magic and piping it through a new band.

Overall, I suppose there is an implicit assumption that Jeff would want to separate his new band from his old ones, but this might not need to happen; when Jeff and the band are in full Raygun-mode, the band absolutely dominates the material, but when the band retreats into mellower territory, it fails to impress as much. A solid full-length, but not as great as it could have been.

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JustinUCR (June 21, 2007)

this record rages, even the slow songs. Aubin needs to come to Chicago and see them live!

ElVaquero (October 29, 2005)

I thought this WAS artwork from Powers.

Pretty awesome.

adamvms (October 29, 2005)

this is a great cd

the bomb rules

NR rules

buy it all

Anonymous (October 29, 2005)

its settled. i'm buying this

Anonymous (October 29, 2005)

Amazing band.

Anonymous (October 29, 2005)

Describing Naked Raygun as a melodic hardcore band and the Bomb as a melodic pop-punk band is a brutal oversimplification. The need for people to pigeon hole bands sounds into catagories like that is part of the problem with punk/hardcore music these days. I think both bands transcend those kind of labels.