A lot of good things come in threes. That was one of the tag lines for the BMW 3 series, which are by the way, very sexy cars. The Godfather and Lord of the Rings came in threes. Indiana Jones came in a three as well, and Harrison Ford kicks your a'ss. Even ska came in three waves. Perhaps this was the motivation for Ezra (real name Rich Tresner) when he sat down one day and put together the third band in the Crack Rock Steady triumvirate, Morning Glory (right behind
Choking Victim and
Leftover Crack). There’s the chance too, that he named the band after the drug, which he could have been on. Or he woke up one morning with something in his pants that for some reason compelled him to start a band. This is however, all speculation. What I
can say for sure that the band’s third CD, The Whole World Is Watching, is a hellava album.
This record is great. Almost as great as No Gods, No Managers (CV), and way above F'uck World Trade (LoC). Its got melody, a bite-your-head-off attitude, is as catchy as hell, and has some great songwriting as well. Morning Glory pull off a mix of elements that is rarely done so well in the punk scene – anthemic, hard-rocking punk, reaching back to the early days of thrash, with some ska and obligatory Down With The System! lyrics – And were not talking some boring, clichéd Anti-flag:
“I don't need you to tell me what to do and I don't need you to tell me what to be... F'UCK YOU!”
- You've Got To Die For The Government (Anti-Flag)
sung in a stupid Americanized voice. Despite the rather overtly put
School Is Bulls'hit, Ezra almost tries his hand at some poetic structure in
Beyond AD:
“I had a vision; we crossed the American plains; out of reach; of acid rains”.
-Beyond AD
The Whole World is Watching and
Tolerate! have got some decent, subtle lyrics:
“As the mahatma sheds a tear, buried so deep underground; we continue to uphold the men who keep us down”
-The Whole Word Is Watching
Granted, they arnt mindblowingly brilliant, but it’s an improvement.
Opening with the title track, the album slings you straight into the middle of a chanting crowd “The Whole World Is Watching!” and police sirens, before it brakes out with a pounding bass drum and some leading guitar notes and shouts of ‘Ey! Ey! Ey! Ey!’ and kicking right into some heavy melodic punk-rock fare before easing in with some ska upstrokes, echoed drums and cleanly sung passages, then braking out with a catchy as hell chorus. All in about the span of about two minutes. It heads out with some awesome soft(er) melody that’s just really well placed within the song. My only complaint here is that Ezra’s vocals seem like something that you’d want to sing along to (Which is a good thing), but for the life of me are nearly impossible to understand.
Of course, we complement the melodic brilliance of first song with the fast paced and all out kick-in-the-face
School Is Bulls'hit It’s not that it’s a bad song, but it’s definitely the weakest off the album, and rather something I’d expect from punk rock vegans
Propagandhi. Of course, you’ll have no trouble following the chants of “School is Bulls'hit!” down the corridors of your state high school, if you’re up to the job. I suppose this song should get credit for being the perfect song to leave running on the School PA while no one’s looking.
Tolerate! and
Beyond AD are just plain cool. The intros of both (Tolerate!, after the bit of noise that introduces the song, has one of the best intros of a punk song I’ve heard in a while) spring you staright into each song, and both have some great interweaving melodic bits – soft and aggressive, mellow and rockin’. At one point I can actually hear some synchs working in the background of Beyond AD, which incidentally, happens to be the only song on
world that Ezra employs some screaming that is reminiscent of Leftover Crack.
Although Morning Glory have their roots in band like Cheap Trick, Rob Zombie and Accept (Hey don’t take it my word for it, they said it themselves!),
Gimmie Heroin is anything but. Here we’re going back to the days of Chocking Victim, with the ska influences, obvious staright away from the ‘ka-chuk, ka-chuk’ of the upstroked chords and very funky bass line. This is probably the best (and softest) song after the title track, catchy as hell, groovin’ and just all round awesome.
What s'hits me about this album is that it’s VERY short. Its goes for just under twenty minutes and two of them are useless recordings of a whole bunch of messages on left on an answering machine at the end of Gimmie Heroin (33 messages to be precise). Ezra’s singing can be a bit hard to understand, and the production isn’t top notch – although, that may be the desired effect. Apart from that though, the album is a welcome addition to the Crack Rock Steady crew, taking everything that was already there, throwing in influences from all over the place (Members of Nausea and The Stockyard Stoics played on this too), and producing something that’s some great listening. It’s a recommended for anyone who’s a fan of Punk Rock in general, chances are, you won’t be disappointed.
