New Style, Old Rancid

Well if you were looking forward to classic Rancid, this isn’t it. But although you’ll be surprised, you won’t be disappointed by the new style changes of an older, seasoned, and sober Rancid. The new album Indestructible is littered with style changes and spacey guitar effects that I can’t resist paralleling to Tim Armstrong’s side-project, The Transplants. Despite the new sound the album is clearly still all-out Rancid with songs such as “Red Hot” and “Start Now” teasing you with the beat of Out Come the Wolves. Its nice to see these veterans trying new tricks while keeping that back-street New York feeling.Trading the hard-punk feel for something slower and clearer, Indestructible is meant for an older crowd rather than rebellious teenagers. Though Tim swears as much as he always has the profanity is much more forward – as are the classic topics they sing about: friends, society, and politics. A cautious changeup in “Arrested in Shanghai”, Tim’s fast-paced lyrical style is literally crammed into a gentle, slower beat that doesn’t come out feeling very together. Not a bad experiment though, and the band more then backs him up with 19 tracks adding up to over an hour of good music. In testing your senses Rancid acceptably trades the ‘Oi’ for a beat that’ll keep your head nodding and hands drumming.