3 out of 5

Label: SideOneDummy

Produced by: Bill Stevenson, Jason Livermore

A classic of the ska-punk scene; a brutal, raw, and awesome swerve into heavier, harsher, punky waters; and then… pop. The Suicide Machines’ third, self-titled album wasn’t a bad effort – it’s an acceptably upbeat number with some toe-tappy singles – but it was very much a change, and not one that it felt like had precedent. (Compared to Battle Hymns being able to be traced to elements in Destruction By Definition.) It’s still a record I occasionally go back to in hopes of ‘rediscovering’ it, but that rediscovery has yet to occur. Followup Steal This Record brought attitude and distortion back into the mix, sort of retroactively showing how SMs sound could have morphed into the preceding disc’s radio-friendly stylings; that is: there’s a core pop backing on the album, but rock and punk become the driving forces.

Following this pattern of stepping back to step forward, their next release, A Match and Some Gasoline – their first in a duo of significantly yellier, more directly politically-motivated albums – takes cues from their first two albums, then shoves a hardcore sensibility inbetween. This mix makes the tone of the disc somewhat imperfect: it’s not “fun,” but it’s also not quite “angry,” and the group almost seems to be forcefully mimicking themselves on tracks like High Anxiety or Did You Ever Get a Feeling of Dread?

If anything, the album stood as a testament of a band that was interested in continuing to play music together, and continuing to find ways to connect with their fans, but also growing up. They were starting to shout and write about the world, with a heavier and somewhat more complex sound to match. Followup War Profiteering Is Killing Us All would finally see fit to do away with the need to call back to the feel-good times of Vans Song, which was for the best, producing a vicious album that ranks equally with their better efforts. A Match and Some Gasoline has, in select track, the template for that, as well as a smattering of classically catchy tracks sprinkled across an uneven thirty minute runtime.