3 out of 5

Label: Asbestos Records

Produced by: Marc Jacob Hudson

Jason Navarro and his Traitors accept their roles as dad-rock skasters.

The first J. Navarro album came out quite a while after Suicide Machines round 1 essentially ended – on one of their heaviest, most consistent albums to date – but before their revitalization on Revolution Spring; in between, he started playing with Hellmouth, which was straightforward hardcore affair. In my head, this allows for a narrative: after years of playing ska-punk, with the former part of that having dwindled and the latter part now at is most extreme, perhaps Jason figured he should up the skanking factor in another project, and the Traitors were born. …And produced an album that was often a pretty cringey co-opting of 2-tone ska mixed with Suicide Machines-esque fight-for-your-rights lyrics, which isn’t such a mismatch for 2-tone in general, but was a mismatch in the way it was executed. More basically, I’d think of the Traitors as Jason’s way to chill out a bit on the side of yelling all the time, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to ditch the punk mindset.

…Short Changed Future, another bundle of years later, finds the band (now post the SM return) settling into older age, and accepting the kind of generic nature of these tunes and melodies. The casual rah-rah lyrics are still there, fighting against capitalism and making some political jabs, but they’re written more with an eye on singing the lyrics and not having to shout them. There’s even a nice lil’ relationship woes ode on Chaos Girl.

The differing approach is apparent from the way the compositions are arranged, which favor keys quite often in a very accessible, catchy, laidback way that one would never have heard on a Suicide Machines record – even when they went pop. And there’s just not that inherent sneer of Navarro’s vocals anymore, though he can still get a shout out there for emphasis as needed. He’s… grown up. While it’d be nice if that resulted in some more original sounding tunes, the additional vocals on some tracks give it a kind of homegrown vibe that’s pleasant, and Chaos Girl is a legitimately fun track, suggesting that just fully digging in on a radio friendly vibe might produce some stronger singles.