Tent City Records – April 24, 2020
A wonderful album, full of energetic and fast paced Grade A punk rock
“I wish they all could be California Girls”, a complaint made famous by that poppiest of pop bands, The Beach Boys. Get ready to be pummeled into a punk rock frenzy by a new Californian beauty: Apathy Cycle.
Although, new… not exactly. A.C. (I’ll use a trendy abbreviation here) consists of musicians with a lot of experience having played in other bands like Intro5pect, Broken Society and LoC. This experience obviously was something they took and used to push the quality of their songs to a high level.
They released their self titled LP in April 2020 (just last month) on Tent City Records. First track “Premium Healthscare” immediately crashes through the door with its blistering indictment against the American health care system. Wow, what an opener! Evident influences of Propagandhi, Rise Against and Strike Anywhere come to mind. After listening to the rest of the album we can add Descendents and Frenzal Rhomb to that list.
Following up their opener with “Rise”, a fiery call to action, the tempo is upheld, the melodies are in full effect and there’s some nice bass guitar work interspersed throughout. “Forgotten Genocide” shows that A.C. writes about interesting and specific subjects, in this case the Armenian genocide during World War 1. I’m guessing this might be because one or more of their members are of Armenian descent but even if this is not the case it’s subject matter is important and poignant enough to write about.
Other songs on the album deal with more general subjects like believing in yourself, feeling trapped in an arbitrary society, objectification, estrangement through modern communication, being out on the road, narcissism, etc. Common thread through all of these is the craftsmanship A.C. display in their songwriting style. All songs feel varied enough to say that they have their own vibe or style to them. Varied song structures and very well executed harmonies make every track a joy to listen to. Even if a given song might not be as interesting as others to the individual listener, you can’t deny that the band gives it their all on each one.
This is no small part also due to the recording environment since this album was tracked in the famous Blasting Room by Andrew Berlin & Bill Stevenson (can I get a “Yay, Descendents!”). And mixed and mastered by Jason Livermore. It sounds fantastic, all the individual parts sound tight, the harmonies are spot on. No doubt working with such punk rock veterans must have had a great effect on the recording process. Apathy Cycle is a wonderful album, full of energetic and fast paced Grade A punk rock. A fantastic calling card of which many a band should feel jealous. I’m gonna be buying this album from their BandCamp and so should you.
