So So Glos
Kamikaze
(Votiv)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
A punk album is only as good as the surge of energy that explodes out of its opening track. Without that initial jolt — that B-12 shot of life surging through your veins — it may as well be dead, banished from your headphones and smashed into a thousand pieces. New York’s So So Glos get this. “Dancing Industry,” the leadoff track on their fourth album, Kamikaze, hits the ground running, sprinting toward the sheer joy of youthful rebellion, best displayed in Alex Levine’s infectious chorus: “You’ll be down on all fours/ Breaking down floors and smashing up ceilings/ Then you’ll be breaking down doors/ To open up yours/ And feel what I’m feeling.”
Kamikaze is another solid entry in a catalog that’s put So So Glos in a league with fellow punk rabble-rousers Titus Andronicus and Joyce Manor. These are smartly constructed pop songs wrapped in snot, spit and attitude, and at their best combine the reckless abandon of punk’s forefathers with an ear for unshakable melodies. “A.D.D. Life” is one such highlight, Levine nodding to Joey Ramone when he sneers, “tell ‘em that my cerebellum’s not functionin’” and the song coming to a screeching halt after he utters the word “fucked!” It picks right back up again, but only after Levine lets out a disgusted cough.
Deeper into the album, Kamikaze increases a greater diversity in its arrangements, with the So So Glos exploring sounds beyond power chords and major scales. “Fool On The Street” is one of the weirdest surprises, a psychedelic bellydance as mind-bending as it is melodically surprising.
By the acoustic opening strums of closer “Missionary,” the So So Glos have stretched their sound well beyond that opening exclamation. Soon enough, those steel-string strums turn into another blast of power chord fury, Levine shouting “Nothing’s gonna stand in my way!” And those doors are ready to be broken down once again.