| CD REVIEW Black President |
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Band: Black President Right, let’s get one thing straight right-off: when guitarists Charlie Paulson (main songwriter and formerly of Goldfinger and Dee Dee Ramone) and Greg Hetson (Circle Jerks, Bad Religion) founded this Hollywood based band back in 2004, the bandname was meant as a middle finger up to the redneck Bush administration, indicating the totally fucked-up America (they were…and still àre…at war, there was…and still ís…no healthcare, people were broke…and many still àre…and all the while you had…and still hàve…politicians talking away about moral values, getting votes in the elections…as they always will!!! Enough to get someone like Paulson enraged enough to out his feelings in his politically and socially critical songs) needed a complete overhaul. Senator Obama was still some way from announcing his running for the Oval Office…and the person Paulson had in mind was more along the lines of Chuck D., Nelson Mandela, or Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction! Well now…before the release of the album (which happened a bit earlier in the US, on the Cobra Music label – and I’ve read reviews of the album going back to September of last year…which means the album got thé perfect pre-release promotion when the band was allowed to tow onto the Vans Warped Tour – let’s not forget that that is a Bad Religion/ Epitaph thing…get the connection?) Hetson left due to conflicting schedules with his other bands, which left the line-up with Paulson, lead singer/ guitarist Christian Martucci, bassist Jason Christopher (New Dead Radio) and drummer Roy Mayorga (Soulfly, Nausea). Well, actually, the latter is occasionally rather busy as well. When the band was to go on tour with T.S.O.L. in February of this year, he found out he had a prior engagement with Amebix…but luckily BP were able to lend Lagwagon’s Dave Raun to fill in Roy’s sick-ass drummer ass! Musically, the band walks a path that is one foot in Alternative Rock, the other in Melodic but driven Punk Rock. Paulson himself compares it to being a cross between Fear and Nazareth…although he’s also quick to add a Motörhead connection to that! Building upon the crazy pounding rhythm foundation, Paulson and Martucci weave a guitar tapestry which is at the same time overall melodic, but also has enough complexities underneath to please the somewhat more demanding music fans! Occasionally there’s the additional use of keyboards (some unexpected organ during “Hallelujah”, piano throughout “Ask Your Daddy”), and throughout the album (album intro, opening/ closing of “Vacate The Vatican”, intro of “Ask Your Daddy”, and the closer of the original material of the band, “Gaslamp James’ Campaign Speech”) you’ve got this (black) guy (by the name of Gaslamp James perhaps?) doin’ short spoken word diddies (also some California “hotshot” girl bringing the intro to “We’re Not Amused”)…but all these little details aren’t as important as the fact that BP bring a deeply felt criticism on their country’s politicians, while in a way being thoroughly patriotic! Martucci screams/ shouts out his indignation with a justified degree of anger, in songs which vary in length from only 83 seconds (single/ video “Suspects” - included on the disc as a multi-media bonus, by the way) to 3:38 (“Neon”). In the US, the album was ended with a cover version (with slightly changed lyrics which hit the spot somewhat painfully) of Alice Cooper’s “Elected”…in Europe we get an additional bonus in the form of a BP ersion of Motörhead’s “Iron Fist” (making for a total of 13 songs – that’s 15 tracks, including the intro and that “speech” – and just over 34 minutes of enjoyable listening time). Get an introduction to BP’s musical world at myspace.com/blackpresident with the four songs posted there, and if the words also mean something to you, thank God (not that I’m religious, but you Americans seem to swear by that idiocracy) for that! Anyway…if you’re a “Citizen” (like as if people outside the USA aren’t also citizens in their respective countries!) you’ve got a good chance at seeing the band play in your hometown, as the band is currently on tour with Left Alone. Well, by the time you’re reading this, they’ll actually be on tour with the Loved Ones and Bouncing Souls…and come mid June, dear European readers, the band hops over the Atlantic (as support to Bouncing Souls) for a short tour around our continent (for more details, check the band’s MySpace page or their own website blackpresidentmusic.com). Aààchh…been some time since a “Punk” band moved me in such a way, so a nomination of this self-titled album into my year-lists is certainly warranted! I’m sure that, once you’ve gotten acquainted with what’s posted at the band’s MySpace, you’ll be wanting to get the album…in spite of any economical restrictions you might feel (the crisis, you know!)…and consequently you’ll be sufficiently infected to propulse the album in your own list of favourite albums for this year (US citizens should have done so for their 2008 lists!) 98/100 Tony. |