Texas punks Bad Sports (Daniel Fried – bass and vocals, Orville Neeley – guitar and vocals, Gregory Rutherford – drums) have been blasting in the indie scene for over a decade, and their newest album, Constant Stimulation, brings fire, rage, wisdom, snark, and riffs. Plenty of riffs.
They’re off to a fast start off with “Giving In,” with its Social Distortion-like swagger. “If it feels like giving up, it’s giving in,” they sing, calling on all of us to keep fighting. “Don’t Deserve Love” and “All Revved Up to Kill” bring in a touch of pop-punk and 1960’s garage rock vocal stylings. “Comes Close,” like the two songs before it, are love songs, or rather songs about the sometimes frustrating / fun nature of love. “When one comes close, but you don’t get no answer…” they sing, deciding not to finish the sentence because we all know what they mean. Nelly’s guitar solo vents our and their frustrations.
“Gains and Losses” is a middle finger at the current U.S. economy, its inequality, and the emptiness that wealth can bring (“Doing nothing, saying nothing, paying someone after the fact.”). “Leave your conscience behind,” they sing on “Ode to Power” – a fitting lyric aimed at those who crawl over the weak to get where and what they want. The title track focuses on our addictions to technology and our fears of silence (“I need constant stimulation, in my ears and in my eyes. I need constant stimulation or I don’t sleep at night.”). It’s a post-punk gem with great drumming from Rutherford, who puts down a beat that sounds simple but is actually damn hard to play once you realize how good he’s keeping (fast) time through the whole track.
The groove on “Easy Truth” is as hard as the lyrics (“All the things I knew I could rely on, they’re not there anymore, to hold true. And I tried for so long to deny it, anyway, but nothing’s going to change for me or you…Nothing’s going to change unless you want it to. Something has to change soon. That’s the easy truth.”). It’s a bit of a Ghandi reference, encouraging us to be the change we want to see in the world. It seems to me that they dabble a lit bit in psychedelia with “Everything We Wanted” (the upped fuzz taking front stage from the low-volume vocals).
“Cardboard Suits” again encourages us to change our worlds, be they local or global, for the better (“Reading headlines won’t make being here get any better. You can’t just wait for things to be divine while falling face-first for egregious disguises.”). Fried’s bass groove on “Distant Life” brings Joy Division rhythm to a fist-raising anthem.
The song closes the digital download of the album, but the CD has seven additional tracks. Among the standouts are “Don’t Get Your Hopes Up” (a great punk title on a fun punk track about hypocrisy in religion.), the sizzling “Living with Secrets,” the heavy / fuzzy bass-driven “Anymore,” and the almost-goth “Pacify My Love.”
It’s a cool record that I’m glad I stumbled upon last month. You’ll dig it if you like indie punk.
Keep your mind open.
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