Pistol Grip
“Another Round”
(BYO Records)
Ha, ha, ha. That laughter is Pistol Grip laughing at the pop-punk band your little sister is rocking out to right now. Oh, a smarter writer could have done something a lot better with that intro. I really butchered that. Anyway, they scoff at the Johnny Come Latelies who think punk rock starts with Blink 182 and ends with Boxcar Racer. Instead, Pistol Grip take their cue from Stiff Little Fingers, Sham 69, and even a little bit of the Ramones-acts that shaped the course of punk rock, even if they never got any of the attention they deserved.
“Another Round” finds Pistol Grip neck deep in thirteen tracks laced with throaty vocals and a brutal honesty lacking in many of today’s more popular punk bands. Yeah, the consistently present four chord flurry is hammered into just about every track and the omnipresent “we’re socially conscious but we don’t come down hard on any one issue” act makes me think that they’re not as well informed as they’d like me to think they are. Still, fans of old-school style punk (Youth Brigade, in particular) will enjoy Pistol Grip’s latest effort.
