Legend tells that once there was a ska mailman roaming the high deserts of Boise, Idaho, carrying packages and letters to the masses and spreading the gospel of picking it up. Then, a careless professor’s science lab kit spilled in the ska mailman bag, and Chemical #3 created something mad, something nutsy, something reel and big, and landlocked. It created Adam Brat, a fusion of all things pop-punk, rock and roll, and ’90s and early 2000s ska punk all rolled into one. At first, he experimented with singles, an EP, cover songs, and holiday themed EPs. After three years, Adam Brat finally mastered his formula, and released… a DEBUT ALBUM!
This album features a little more than twelve songs, including remastered versions of four tracks from their debut EP. It is the perfect album for fans of ’90s ska like Reel Big Fish and the Aquabats, or even fans of Blink-182. While I enjoyed their EP and it reminded me of a lot of ’90s punk like Groovie Ghoulies, the Queers, and Screeching Weasel (if they made ska albums), this debut LP has much better sound quality, and I feel like it captures the actual intent of the song writing.
The album begins with a beautiful buildup of an introduction. Drums and a thick bass line lead into the opening track, “Regressers”, before being accompanied by a simple upstroke ska rhythm and a subtle rising introduction on an organ. As the guitar picks up and adds complexity, we get some vocal “chick-chikas” to add texture, and as soon as that scene is set, wham! You’re hit with a heavy dose of rock guitar rhythms. This feels like it is a lost Reel Big Fish song, written about forgetting the lyrics and messing up all of your songs at a concert. The songwriting, the lyrics, the storytelling, and the conceit of writing a song about being in a band feels somewhere between autobiographical and a fictional character that you embody on stage. But here’s the thing: It’s good. It’s really good. It doesn’t feel like a song that was scrapped and left on the cutting room floor to be picked up later. It just brings that joy that was found throughout early Reel Big Fish albums (even as most of the lyrics were cynical, like this).
Another track that takes heavy influences from Reel Big Fish is about halfway through the album, in “Humans R Real”. This absolutely belongs on Why Do They Rock So Hard?, as it’s straight-up that fast rock with powerful guitar and strong punch horns that make that album one of the most iconic ever recorded. The lyrics to the song are somewhere between silly and serious, masking isolation and loneliness and a loss of connection with a failing society, with a plea for an alien abduction and questioning if humanity is even real.
But those two tracks (and a few others) that feel heavily inspired by Reel Big Fish are not to say that is the full vibe of the album; I don’t want to give that misconception. The second song on the album actually starts to quash it. “Shark in the Water” is a little faster, with the horns relegated to split up the verses, and mostly dominated by quick upstrokes that build in intensity throughout the song until we get a killer guitar solo after the second verse. The song sounds fun and playful about the dangers of a shark in the water, but the metaphor feels glaring with a single line emphasized to drive home the point that the shark is a different kind of predator and the ocean is the dance floor.
“Hurt” may be the most serious song on the album, and it has a more melancholy vibe through the song as it draws on more emo influences than pop or rock. With themes of failed relationships and wanting other people to suffer with more incredible guitars, this song definitely establishes a wider range than I was expecting on the album and highlights outstanding production.
I hate when my reviews seem to focus on the front of an album and ignore the second half, but all of the primary themes of the album are well established in the first several songs. The fourth song on the album is “Throw Me Away”, which is the best example of another unexpected theme from the album. While I mentioned earlier that some of the Lab Brats’ earlier music felt like ’90s pop punk, that has never been more true than with “Throw Me Away”. This is a straight up pop punk track that could pass for peak Blink-182. I’m almost convinced that this song was on Enema of the State in an alternate universe. As far as pop punk ska songs are concerned, this is about as pure as it gets, and it’s excellent.
Overall, the album is a lot of fun. The back half of the album is every bit as good as the front half, and at times better. The themes throughout the album are at times more serious and a little more depressing than you might expect from a band that themes itself off of holiday songs, mad science, and Powerpuff Girls references and a near slap stick sense of humor. In fact, there are even lyrics about how it would be nice to not write as many serious lyrics and to just have fun. The Lab Brats have gone from a fun little excuse to put out some ska songs to a seriously exciting ’90s ska revival band with some of the best and most authentic third wave sounds around.
Take a listen to Triskaidekaphobia below.
Written by Gimp Leg
