Victims of Circumstance – “Do It Yourself”
Album Reviews | Nov 5th, 2008
Record Label: Financial Records
Genre: Ska/Punk
Band Link: link
Buy on Amazon.com link
If you take just a little bit of the River City Rebels, a little bit of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, some ALL and maybe a touch of the Bouncing Souls you can pretty much piece together the sound that encompasses the sonic listening experience of Do It Yourself.
With Do It Yourself there are a lot of various influences that show up throughout the course of its thirteen tracks. Usually, albums with an overabundance of influences end up sounding convoluted and trite. VOC manage to do a good job of keeping the flow of the album intact with just enough of their signature sound in each and every song to keep you from wondering if you are listening to compilation album instead of one singular band.
If one were to put their finger on the true VOC sound, it would more than likely be the poppier-punk that not only appears on the pop punk tracks but on the ska tracks as well. Those songs usually have a melodic, sing-a-long quality that would entertain even the angriest of street punks. To put the icing on the cake, not only do the Victims of Circumstance do a ska punk cover of Social Distortions Ball and Chain, but also Tim Burton of Mighty Mighty Bosstones fame produced the album and provides horns on the ska tracks. Bonus!
Bottom Line: The Victims of Circumstance manage to keep things entertaining with their total disregard of genre boundaries.
Notable Tracks: My Fate, Couldve Been Nice, No Idea
Overall Rating:
