Already Dead is a Massachusetts punk quartet who release their second album `Something Like A War` this month. They are led by songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Dan Cummings, rounded out by guitarist and co-vocalist Brandon Bartlett, bassist Brian Ferrazzani and drummer Nick Cali.
The album opens with `The Spirit Of Massachusetts Avenue` and it`s a fairly brutal marker to lay down with just under one hundred and eighty seconds of controlled aggression with shared vocals almost spitting out a diatribe about tackling Boston’s social inequality along a 16-mile stretch of road that connects posh suburbs to gritty homeless encampments in the heart of the city, a challenge to one and all. I read that title track `Something Like A War` was inspired by a documentary on baseball, where Ty Cobb quoted about how ‘every game is something like a war’ and that description approaching something with that kind of intensity and determination struck a chord with songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Dan Cummings. The track itself is brief but has a kind of underlying anxiety running through its veins.
`One Foot` is the kind of number that will have circle pits forming when shared live. It relates to daily struggles to keep things together mentally. We have an impassioned call to arms with `Landlord` which I read highlight`s American society’s collective financial instability.
The idiom of `Hunger For More` here is another anthemic rallying cry for fighting for what you believe to be right. It races along before almost stopping for breath in the last forty seconds. There`s a rhythmic pounding beat to `The Romeo Club` which had a touch of a pirate song about it. A personal commentary on the writer’s family member John “Lefty” Caulfield and his neighbourhood friends from Cambridge, dubbed “Retired Old Men Eating Out,” and recounts the gang’s story before and after their service in World War II.
`I Want It All` is a slightly different offering in that it begins with a spoken word oration and kind of lists the things the singer would desire in a perfect word touching on love, world peace, rebellion, and social upheaval. A track that really draws you in with its legitimate aims as its shared with a melodic musical soundscape and doesn’t veer into being preachy. We return to a more robust careering earworm with `Rock Bottom` which seems to hint at simple events that can have a profound effect on one`s heath, wealth, and well-being.
`Travelin` Blues` ain`t blues but more old school rock `n` roll ala Chuck Berry with churning guitar chords and riffs and a thumping drumbeat. In `Wit`s End` we have a rushing ode of despair and anguish which ends with an almost cry for help from the vocalist.
`Shards of Glass` is a reflective musing and a number that i`m sure fellow Bay Staters Dropkick Murphys would be only too happy to have in their set. I really loved this track with its lowkey horns and keys. A static crackle leads us into `Unsung Heroes` a stripped back eulogy that reminds us that regardless of how society lies, the working class is the true backbone of the economy.
`Keep it Movin“ has an understated ska vibe and is a kind of consideration of the daily grind to make a dollar. I have to say I loved the horns that were sprinkled intermittently throughout and the briefly rapped monologue that was shared towards the end of the number. The album closes out with the fairly anthemic `When You Were Great` a personal reflection with a parallel which for me had a similar evaluation of the USA today as Guthrie`s `This Land Is Your Land` from over eighty years ago. A haunting harmonica added further poignancy to the track.
`Something Like A War` really blew me away. The album and band have a controlled aggression about them at times with tracks that are full of social discourse and become thought provoking with their observative cogitations, self-reflection, and share the battles we all face from external forces and internal demons. Wonderful stuff.
Rating 9.5/10
