Search - Time Again :: Darker Days (Dig)

This is definitely my favorite band that is still making mus

Nick Colosi | Chesterland, OH, USA | 04/10/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In the beginning, the general agreement between Time Again fans (and critics) is that they sound very similar to East Bay veterans Rancid, minus one amazing bassist that we have in Matt Freeman, but that it's not neccessarily all bad because "Stories Are True" was a better CD than anything new that Rancid has put out and you really gotta go way back to find Rancid that was better than Time Again.



This CD has broken away from that stereotype, because, let's face it, when we judged Time Again as a Rancid-copy, we only had one CD to cite, now we have this. And "this" happens to flip the tables completely.



Let me be the first to say that regardless of sales or media exposure, "Darker Days" will go down in history as Time Again's breakthrough album. If "Stories are True" was better than new school Rancid, "Darker Days" is better than anything Rancid has ever put out (Yes, that includes "And Out Come the Wolves" It was a close call)



This CD shows Time Again following the same formula as their prevous effort, but picking up the pace, adding a little bit of raw energy, and tipping the scale towards a more bass driven CD. Oren Soffer is truly the star of this CD, as can be seen immediately in the very beginning of the CD when Elijah let's a few notes ring out on 6-string and Oren lays down a more fast paces bassline underneath it. The first three songs are all bass driven, as well as 5, 7, 10, 12, and 14, so a little more than half, which is nice to see in a day and age when the bass guitar is usually so quiet you can't hear it and just follows along with the rhythm guitar. The verses of "One Way or Another" show Oren at his best so far, which leads me to this prediction; in 5 years, Oren will have surpassed Matt Freeman on bass guitar.



But returning to the CD, the entire thing is as close to perfect as you'll ever get. The guitars are catchy as hell, the driving drums make you wanna jump around, and Daniel's vocals are perfectly on track. The sheer speed and energy, as well as some well placed anger, seperate Daniel Dart from Tim Armstrong in a way that he was unable to do on the first CD. However, there are still a few songs that sound like they could have been written by Rancid, ("Lines are Faded", "TV Static") if Rancid were in its glory days, which ended in about 1995.



At first I had given this CD 5 stars but then I realized I can't do that because there were a few things that bugged me when I listened to this CD. First, "Lucky" is not a very good song, it has way too many choruses and I couldn't help but think that Daniel was just trying to copy the way that Tim Armstrong used to use his own name in his lyrics. ("Come now Daniel, closed mouths don't get fed" reminded me or "My friend Marty said 'Tim you're a lucky man'") Second, I was really hoping that there would be at least on ska beat-song on this CD, possibly at the end, to kind of act as a sequel to "Streetwalker," and while the closing song is very very good, it's just not "Streetwalker. Lastly, with so much power coming from Oren's bass, I couldn't help but find some of the guitar lines to be kind of bland, especially on "Lines are faded" and the title track.



Other than that I have no complaints. This is a CD that I think any fan of west coast punk rock needs to pick up, as well as anybody else that listens to any sort of street punk, pop punk, alternative, emo, screamo, whatever, kind of music. I prided myself that I got my friend Cory who is exclusively a "Street punk casualties/aus rotten" kind of guy into this band when he was fading out of the Rancid era. Case and point, anybody can like this band, and since they're just getting started we can expect a lot from them in future years."

Great album for the so.cal punk rocker

Stephanie A. Gilbert | Maumee, OH | 09/27/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Very good album overall. It sounds a lot like Rancid, so if you like them, you'll like Time Again. High energy punk rock, these guys can actually play, not just make noise. Highly recommended to anyone who is a fan of Hellcat bands."