Middle Class Rut - No Name No Color Review

No Name No Color

Middle Class Rut

Release Date: 22nd Nov, 2010
Label: Bright Antenna
Genre: Alternative Rock
Purchase on Amazon

Until this debut full-length from Middle Class Rut, the only hype that had really stuck to the Sacramento pair concerned numerical values. Specifically, were they the two-headed heroes the rock press had so longingly hoped for since pace-setting Canadian duo Death From Above 1979 acrimoniously split in 2006? Pleasingly, No Name No Color is driven by a combative mood more than fit to challenge lazy parallels.

Considering No Name... is compiled from several years of writing between kinetic hard touring, the coherency on display is impressive, as is the volume pumped out by a mere brace of noisy souls. Beefing up their sound along a steady series of preceding but, in isolation, somewhat unremarkable EPs, a handful of those tracks are given steroid boosts of muscle here, alongside new tunes. And suddenly it all begins to make more sense.

With reverberations – in guitar-slinger Zack Lopez's ethereal vocals at least – of fellow Californian crazies Jane's Addiction, a decent degree of anger bounces off otherworldly echo trails. It propels No Name... along at a fair lick, after insistent opener Busy Bein' Born has slowly revved the pace. Possibly tongue-in-cheek declaration of nationality USA buzzes past, flipping schizophrenically to mild self-loathing on New Low. Lifelong Dayshift is the first real example of venomous potential, though, snarling "Your life / It ain't worth wasting mine on": bitterness flecked with genuine ferocity.

MCR (or MC Rut as the band prefers to abbreviate) don't totally condemn minimal personnel limitations to the dustbin throughout, however. A saggy middle section sees to that, Are You on Your Way, Alive or Dead, I Guess You Could Say and Sad to Know all bordering mid-paced interchangeableness.

But intriguing self-deprecation returns at the conclusion, Cornbread stripping previous towers of sound down to handclaps and strummed repetitions beneath defeated observations, examining shame catalysed by country boy origins. That's near enough all you can conclude from lines like "Maybe I'm a one-horse town motherf***er", anyway. And it's those underlying neuroses that necessitate return listening, leaving you eager to unravel the working class self-doubt that fuels Middle Class Rut.

Reviewed by Adam Kennedy

About The Artist

Middle Class Rut

Middle Class Rut play a visceral brand of alternative rock that echoes the intensity of Jane's Addiction and Refused, the pummeling backbone of Rage Against The Machine and the anthemic post-punk core of The Foo Fighters. Only in their mid-20s, Middle Class Rut, consisting of Zack Lopez (guitar/vocals) and Sean Stockham (drums/vocals), are already veteran musicians; both guys were core members of Leisure, which was signed to DreamWorks back in 2000 when Sean and Zack were just in their early teens. After Leisure disbanded several years later, Zack and Sean returned to their hometown of Sacramento, California. Hunkering down in their homegrown studio, they started jamming and writing music together. After penning more than 60 songs, their new project, Middle Class Rut, was officially born in December 2006. The band's first national tour happened in the fall of 2008, when they hit the road with The Receiving End Of Sirens and Envy On The Coast. From the first show of that tour, Middle Class Rut completely destroyed expectations and won over legions of new fans. After seeing the band's intense and charismatic performance, Alternative Press wrote in its January 2008 issue that "..it's mind-blowing to witness the sheer depth and complexity of the sound these two guys are capable of unleashing on their own, but once the novelty subsides, you're left with incendiary post-rock with visible traces of 90s alternative." After a series of EP's, Middle Class Rut's debut album 'No Name No Color' was released on October 5 2010 in the US and on November 22 2010 in the UK.

Related Reviews

Leave A Response