Cleveland Bound Death Sentence: Cleveland Bound Death Sentence

Cleveland Bound Death Sentence: Cleveland Bound Death Sentence

1999

No Idea Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1.  Rumble Seats + Running Boards  2.  Love American Style  3. The Difference Between Us + Them  4. Drain  5. Good Thing  6.  MPLS Public Transport Song #2  7.  Baltimore  8. East River Park  9. Between The Lions  10. Hoxha  11.  PCMZ  12. Not Zelique Glass  13. Jailbird Bars  14.  Third Floor + Passed Out In Doorways


Ugh...I've been on vacation for the past two weeks...I'm going to go out on  a limb and say I've drank about 150 beers over these past two weeks and I'm starting to wonder if I'm...gulp...Tired of beer?!?!?!

 Is such a thing possible? Am I also tired of gorgeous sunsets and cute kittens?! 

Hmmm, what else has been going on? I celebrated my 10-year wedding anniversary...and last night the cops showed up cos I was blasting some Dead Milkmen too loud! 

Forget the Police! 

Oh yea...Today's record...Ahem....I was at Eastside Records about a year ago and the clerk said, "Hey, we got in a copy of the Cleveland Bound Death Sentence album..."

The name was instantly familiar for some reason but I was drawing a blank.  

"I don't know who that is," I admitted. Then I looked at the cover and immediately recognized the Cometbus-iness of it...

"It's Aaron Cometbus and Paddy from Dillinger 4," the guy replied.

Ohhhh! I totally forgot that happened! I suddenly remembered being super psyched to hear this record back when it came out but for some reason blanked on its existence for a decade and a half...I'm actually kind of happy I forgot about this cos it means I get to enjoy it now...

And it sounds exactly how I imagined it: Like a sloppier D4...In addition to Patrick's usual gruff delivery there's also a second vocalist, Emily, whose utterly tuneless delivery makes Paddy sound like Pavarotti..So they make quite a pair;  Paddy who can barely carry a tune in a bucket and Emily who doesn't even own a bucket! If you're a fan of rough and ragged Cometbus style punk, this is pretty much business as usual, but if you're a top-40 type used to slick harmonies (or any harmonies whatsoever) this might be a turn-off...But I think most D4 fans will dig this...When I first put on the album and was greeted by the poppy blast of " Rumble Seats + Running Board" it very much felt like I was listening to an alternate-reality D4 record...

Oh, yea, I should mention that despite it being the band's only full-length (well, if you consider 20 minutes full-length) it's not a proper album, but a compilation of previous 7-inches (minus the 2005
Gateway Handshake EP"  which was released after this album)...When I first heard this comp I figured that it was sequenced in a "Singles Going Steady" A-Side-featuring-A-Sides, B-Side-featuring-B-Sides manner, since there seemed to be a bit of a drop-off in quality from Side One to Side Two, but apparently that wasn't the case..It's just that their self-titled first EP  happened to be the most ruling shit ever...Highlights like "Drain," and "Baltimore" (especially "Baltimore") are hard to beat...

 The second side seems to focus a bit less on melody and more on the sloppy bludgeoning aspect of the band, and there's a lot less of Paddy's vocals on Side Two..But depending on your feelings on the relationship between punk and poppiness you might actually enjoy Side Two more than I do...Still, the energy never flags and with an average track length of about a minute and a half there's not much time to get too annoyed at anything...Plus Side Two is where you find the exceptional "Between The Lions"...

Sure, I wish it was longer...In my opinion there's not enough catchy, rough and tumble punk in the world, but I'll take what I can get..Be sure to check it out if you're an admirer of the grittier side of pop-punk...


Here's "Rumble Seats + Running Boards" by Cleveland Bound Death Sentence...Enjoy...