A solid, well-recorded and balanced listen
JRM | Corvallis, OR USA | 07/26/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I'm obviously a fan of Good Riddance, and am not sure how else I could have run into Luke Pabich's side-project if I didn't visit GR's website so often. So, it's likely anyone who'd read this is a Good Riddance fan as well. That said, I wouldn't venture as far as to compare Outlie with Good Riddance. Besides the clean production and tightly written songs, this is a unique rock and roll experience. Luke's voice is decidedly west-coast, and I'm only saying that because his inflections are a mixture of Page Hamilton's(Helmet) almost apathetic/melodramatic delivery, Jim Lindberg's(Pennywise) enunciation and energy, and some "Ignorance Is Bliss"-era Face To Face-type emotion laced within chorus here and there. Of course, like the bio says, Luke wrote the entire album. It shows, drawing from those three I mentioned earlier(Helmet, Pennywise, Face To Face) sonically, but also occasionally resembling his guitar work in Good Riddance. "Operation Phoenix" is the best sonic comparision I could draw to Outliw, Luke's trademark harmonic chimes and dynamic power chord tomfoolery. Outlie is well-recorded, mixed perfectly and arranged and executed in a way that keeps things interesting. For the sake of being redundant... Fans of Good Riddance, post-"Meantime" Helmet, Pennywise, Face To Face will do well to check this out. An outstanding debut from Outlie, highly recommended."