Pistol Grip - Tear it All Down

A good punk band doesn’t have to break new ground to be good, and Pistol Grip isn’t doing anything new, just doing it well. Tear It All Down, like the band’s previous releases, boils down the whole of punk rock, spitting out a pop-leaning, hardcore-feeling, socially-conscious effort that should be the sort of thing a punk newbie eats up. Elements of Rancid (“Never Be Another” and “…For I Have Sinned”), Face To Face (“Rusted Lining”), Dropkick Murphy’s (“When The Ink Runs Dry”) and Bad Religion (“Dog In Prague”) run through the band’s music. That’s a pretty incomplete list, considering you can hear a hundred other bands in there; the point being this ain’t no rip off act. Pistol Grip know where they come from, going all the way back to The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers, and they rock well. With all the rocking, the lyrics to Tear It All Down cover feelings of alienation and doubt but, more importantly, shed anger at personal choices and the problems of government and all sorts of leaders. This is the kind of band young punks should flock to because Pistol Grip know the music; they know the history and they know what most of the bands on MTV don’t – that there’s more to life than hating your parents. [www.byorecords.com]