Description

Amercian punk rock band The Forgotten created a classic album with Keep The Corpses Quiet. It blazed along, taking typical street punk tunes and thrashing them out like speedy hardcore. Their 2002 Control Me feels more subdued. The tempo has slowed their songwriting has grown in leaps and bounds. Instead of the hardcore of days past, many of the songs here are rollicking, sing-along Oi that lend themselves best to live situations with lots of crowd interaction. Tracks like Social Security and Same Old Story are sure to become staples in the band's play list for years to come. Respect And Lies, which was demoed on Sample This Too!, is a great example of how Gordy's vocals have significantly strengthened in the past two years. Although I was disappointed in the lack of speed, there were lots of pleasant surprises here. Listen just may be the best song the Forgotten have ever written. If anything it reminds me a bit of latter day The Damned with a reggae backbeat. Our Response is pub-rock that lyrically shows that a band can be patriotic yet not blind to America's faults. Other songs are peppered with enough rockabilly licks to make Social Distortion proud. Its these qualities that keep my faith in the Forgotten. There may not be a single track that has the same fiery urgency as Corpses, but the album is still chock full of interesting moments. While Control Me may not top Keep The Corpses Quiet for me, it's still a solid release that's more developed than most street punk out there. The Forgotten's greatest quality may be that they've yet fall into that generic rut that so many bands in this style do. Fans of Rancid, the Swingin Utters, the Dropkick Murphys or Social Distortion should check this out. Track listing: 1. Respect And Lies 2. Retrofitted 3. Listen 4. Never Accepted 5. Social Security 6. Pulling Strings 7. Same Old Story 8. We Gotta Know 9. Don't Gotta Worry 10. Rebellion 11. No Way To Live 12. Our Response