Bad Time Records – 08 Oct 2011
Auspicious debut from the new ska vanguard (FFO: Less Than Jake, Suicide Machines)
Frankly, I missed much of the boat on Kill Lincoln. Despite living in essentially the same city they call home (Washington DC) for eleven of the fifteen years they’ve existed, I accidentally stumbled upon them in July 2020 when I bought two bargain boxes of vinyl from the good folks at Jump Start Records. That’s Cool… in a Totally Negative and Destructive Way was the last of the 10 records that I listened to. Their mixture of ska punk a la Less Than Jake cut with hardcore sensibilities like Paint It Black was eye opening for something that seemed like a punchline of a genre for the better part of the 21st century. My discovery quickly dovetailed into pre-ordering their most recent LP, Can’t Complain, which is already a classic of 2020s punk.
Their first album, You Were There, was self-released on CD-R by the original iteration of the band. While it’s been available for purchase from Bandcamp from both the band and Jump Start and has been streaming through Spotify and Amazon Music since 2019, no one has been able to purchase a physical copy of the record. This is a damned shame, especially since several tracks from this album still feature prominently in their setlist, and one song is their most streamed song by a significant margin.
Fret not! Bad Time Records (the other hat that Kill Lincoln’s Mike Sosinski wears) is fixing this injustice, putting out a remastered version of You Were There with touched up artwork (because Mike definitely didn’t lose the files like three laptops ago).
It has also occurred to me that, despite boasting a number of ska aficionados1, there are literally no reviews of Kill Lincoln anywhere on TGEFM. Individual songs? Sure. Roll of the Dice? Heck yes. Live shows? Well, there’s one. But no record reviews!
In honor of the remaster, I’m going to correct yet another injustice and review You Were There.
I can’t talk about this album without discussing the number of samples there are—which is a lot for the late Aughts and early Teens. We’re talking a late 90s amount of samples, which is probably appropriate for a band at the baton pass between waves of ska. It’s frankly something that more bands should do much more if they’re not looking to be overly serious.
The opener, “Bike Shorts”, samples the movie Trolls 2 before transitioning into a long horn intro. In the lyrics, Mike Sosinski laments the disconnect he feels with his then-hometown of Washington DC before committing to improve himself in a righteous jam.
The theme of not fitting continues in “Look What You Did (You Little Jerk)”. What might otherwise be a fairly pedestrian ska punk song is transformed—dare I say empowered — by a lengthy sample courtesy Randy “Macho Man” Savage. The horn section shows off the versatility by providing some great gang vocals on the final chorus, making this a keeper.
On “Clark Gable”, Kill Lincoln manages to let each part of the band shine. In the verses, the rhythm section surges forward, dragging every other instrument onto their backs. At the pre-chorus, the horns and distorted guitar leap to the fore. And at the chorus, a simple scat melody allows you, dear listener, to join in the music.
“Pralines and Dick” is another staple of the band’s live set. If you’ve seen them live, you’ve assuredly seen their trombonist Yasutaka “Ume” Umemoto stand amongst the crowd on a table, bartop or stepladder playing at the band, you’ve heard the positively devilish trombone lick that starts the song. Despite their relative youth, Sosinski and pals penned one of the catchier songs about disdain for rich kids since Dillinger Four’s “DOUBLEWHISKEYCOKENOICE”.
Not everything on the album is great. “Desk Jockey” and “Something Something Etc.” are clearly songs where Kill Lincoln is working at finding their voice. “Gummy Bears” has some stellar drummer and approaches the hardcore side of the band—especially the gang vocals—but doesn’t quite fuse ska and hardcore the way they do on later efforts.
I can’t end this review without talking about the fourth track, “Get Fucked Four Eyes”. This is the first song that Alexa plays me when I demand my Kill Lincoln, and it’s the last song they’ve played each time I’ve seen them live. It’s downright anthemic, and it can serve as a rallying cry for someone who needs to change the toxic people in their life. If there’s one Kill Lincoln song that everyone should listen to, it’s this one.
If you didn’t reach the preceding 70 words and TLDR’d me, As You Were is a great debut album for a band that only gets better as they age. There are some downright bangers and some choice samples despite some missteps for a young act. It’s a great way to get introduced to a band that you, almost like myself, may have missed until this point. Afterwards, go check out their other records like That’s Cool…, Good Riddance to Bad Advice and their opus to date, Can’t Complain.
YO VINYL NERDS: You Were There is getting its very first vinyl pressing. Whether you liked Kill Lincoln before they were cool, love this album, or are just a completist (who are you pointing at?), you should pick it up at the Bad Time Store before the 700 records sell out.
If they sell out (and history suggests they will), the Kill Lincoln lads will have another 200 copies on their summer tour starting in June (tix at the link).
And if you like That’s Cool… but don’t have the first pressing on black vinyl like yours truly, you can also pick up a repress here.
1 Don’t you goddamn dare try to make a portmanteau out of that. Ska’s come too far to swipe at that low hanging fruit.
Once hailing from the salty tundra of Syracuse, NY, Ben now calls the DC suburbs his home. He fell in love with punk after listening to Punk-O-Rama 3, Less Than Jake and MXPX in middle school. He loves to slam dance but is too large to stage dive.
When he’s not pretending to have exquisite musical taste, he’s raising two children, designing RPG products and practicing law. (Who knows if he’ll ever get the hang of it.)
