Music Reviews
Artist:
Less Than JakeTitle:
GNV FLALabel:
Cooking Vinyl
Florida - The Sunshine State, home to The Walt Disney World Resort and more old people than Bognor Regis and the village in Last of The Summer Wine combined. FLA also boasts the spiritual home for third-wave ska – Gainesville, or GNV. This ska-punk mecca is the hometown and source of inspiration for Less Than Jake’s tenth studio album GNV FLA. Packing more brass and horns than a Mark Ronson wet dream, GNV FLA see’s the band return to their roots in spirit and style. The lyrics deal with stereotypical pop-punk subjects, like living in a small town with big dreams, but they are handled with such deft ability it’s hard to find fault. “Condition my small town, prognosis let’s get out” sings Chris Demakes, sometimes whining like Tom Delong, sometimes singing like alternate Brandon Boyd who fell in love with ska.
Where as the ska-punk lyrics and singing is business as usual, GNV FLA sees the band return to their traditional sound, mixing off-beat ska, stinging punk riffs and even a bit of heavy metal shredding. For every song with a happy-go-lucky ska vibe (City of Gainesville) there’s a harder punk track (Settling Son), forming a healthy mix of styles, like the music from every Tony Hawks game distilled into one long skank. It is unlikely GNV FLA will see the band cross into mainstream commercial success, but the album is such a glorious archetypal ska-punk outing it will please anyone with even a vague interest in the genre.
