I have one Rancid album, and this is it. I'm pretty sure any Rancid fan would be horrified at the prospect of only owning their self-titled fifth album, rather than one that everyone agrees to be better, such as ...And Out Comes the Wolves. I was never a huge Rancid fan - I saw them at a Reading Festival one year and borrowed one of their cds from a friend (back in the day when that was how you shared music). I don't think I ever had any plans to get into them properly, I just bought this because it was quite cheap.
I was in Heidelberg visiting a friend who was spending a year abroad studying there. I was exploring the town one day and found the local record shop, Vinyl Only (I can't remember if it was true to its word, or whether there were cds there too). There wasn't a huge amount I was after, but I did find this and Sparta's Porcelain for £7 each (or whatever that was in Euros at the time), which seemed like good deals. I figured I'd get £7-worth of enjoyment out of it and I probably did back then. Plus, I knew the song Rattlesnake from a free cd I got on a copy of Kerrang! one summer - that cd ended up being the soundtrack to a family holiday to France (at least in the headphones I had, not the car hifi).
I've not listened to this album in a very long time - it was before the era of mp3 downloads and it's rarely what I feel like listening to when I sit down in front of my record player. It's not a bad album, but it's pretty flat - I mean that in the sense that across the 22 songs, there are few moments that really stand out, which means it's just 22 hardcore-ish punk songs. There's a very subtle hint of their old ska days, but it's not very noticeable. Generally speaking, I prefer the songs that Lars sings, but I definitely couldn't listen to a whole album of just him singing, so it's good that there's a mix. There are a few moments that stand out a bit, but it's hard to figure out which ones they are without counting lines on the LP (and I guess I just don't care that much)
I think I just came to Rancid too late. I can see why my friends were big fans in our late teens - the band had a perfect mix of aggression, aesthetic and enough genres to appeal to a variety of people. As someone whose teenage years are beginning to feel like a distant memory, it's harder to enjoy as much.
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 22
Cost: £7 new
Bought: Vinyl Only, Heidelberg
When: 23/01/06
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
