You know this story. Almost a decade ago, the blaze of energy that ska’s third wave brought to mainstream rock in the 1990s came to an end. The subgenre bands it bore, while popular for a short time, eventually abandoned the dancehall/barroom personality in favor of more streamlined sounds. Ska-core seemingly merged with emo, resulting in an oversaturation of hard-edged metal-influenced punk in most mainstream and underground scenes. Ska punk devolved into modern pop punk. Ska itself, with few exceptions, simply disappeared from rock “relevancy”. The ska groups that benefited from mainstream success in the nineties were either forced to accept their career twilight and continue on with a respectable cult following[i] or simply break up.[ii]
It’s strange then that bands like Safety still exist. Based in Tampa, Florida, a former pirate’s haven for ska punk, they released their first album, “Curses” independently in 2007 through Copacetic Records.[iii] Paraphrased, the album is a hodgepodge of early nineties punk and the third wave subgenres of the late nineties packed into 13 short ones.
It may sound a little basic dated, but sounding basic and out-of-date is simply collateral damage when you’re making music past its twilight. For instance, classic rock acts deal with the same quandary.
Stubbornness to change with the times will often make the music sound dated or obsolete. However, it’s important to listen to music this stubborn because it’s made by musicians who realize that the fifteen minutes of fame for this genre has come and gone. There probably isn’t going to be a fourth wave of ska.[iv] Mainstream punk doesn’t have room for true punk, and hardcore has gone as big as it is going to go. MTV doesn’t play any videos anymore, and if it did, it wouldn’t be playing this.
People who play this type of music instead of traversing the (apparently) more mature grounds of indie rock know that they are not making music for the majority.[v] They realize that there is only miniscule chance of fame. They know that there is a good chance that they are only making music for a small group of select devotees to the genre. There is an even greater chance that they are only making music for themselves. But this is why it’s important to listen.
This particular album is a scattershot of tone and fuzz. Furthermore, it’s a Rorschach of the aforementioned subgenres of third wave ska, while the bulk of the songs have as their backbone the tunes of Bad Religion in the form of full-band vocal melody, yelled choruses, and hard drums, roughly recorded with crackles present with every high and low. Interspersed are medleys of fast electric ska, disgusting guitars, and singsong acoustic mini-numbers. The acoustic guitars provide small, smooth breathers in the beginnings, middles, and ends of songs. When the band abruptly starts dropping ska strokes, either with full-bodied electric guitar or with fuzzy distortion, the result is something that resembles piano notes on the side of the stage placidly keeping everything together. All of this is thrown together into nearly every song on the album.
Basic? In the event that it still sounds that way, I apologize, and I’m sure the band would apologize too.[vi] It would be unfortunate though, because “Curses” is the first album I’ve heard in several years that happily wreaked dancehall energy on my ears and made me feel like I was drinking at Dixie Tavern. This is what made the third wave so awesome, right?
[i] For example, Less Than Jake spent the majority of the 2000s with major label Sire Records, and suffered from dwindling record sales until starting its own label, Sleep It Off Records in 2008. Additionally, Reel Big Fish was able to stay with Mojo Records until 2005, when the label’s failure to promote “We’re Not Happy Until You’re Not Happy” and the album’s subsequent low sales forced the band to relocate to independent Rock Ridge Music, and rely primarily on cover songs for success. Rancid is possibly an exception to this trend, as their 2003 album "Indestructible" enjoyed the highest charting and opening week sales for the band. However, the band has failed to release an album of new material in nearly six years.
[ii] See pretty much every other ska or punk band you listened to in the late nineties.
[iii] Available at http://www.copaceticrecords.com/. Safety would release a second record, an EP entitled “A Season Of Bad Dreams”, through Audible Diversion Group a year later. Available at http://www.audiblediversiongroup.com/.
[iv] However, some say that another ska revival is imminent. See Marcella Ortega, “Fourth Wave Of Ska On It’s Way”, available at http://media.www.dailylobo.com/media/storage/paper344/news/2006/06/29/Culture/Fourth.Wave.Of.Ska.On.Its.Way-2119557.shtml. Others claim that the fourth wave of ska is already here, but it is too difficult to determine whether or not it’s coming at all, most likely because of a lack of any meaningful mainstream success for the genre in the new millennium. See http://www.skapedia.com/mediawiki/index.php5?title=Fourth_Wave_Ska.
[v] The same can be said of old punk from the 1970s.
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