By David Torres
By David Torres
Nothing is more essential to life than water, food, and, of course, punk rock.
At least one would assume that this is what Pennywise and their ninth studio album, “Reason To Believe,” would want to convey.
Of course, this is not the usual album release for the well established band.
Led by lead singer Jim Lindberg, Pennywise is from Hermosa Beach, California.
Rather, this album is being released on the nearly 3-year-old record label, MySpace Records.
With the social networking juggernaut at the bands disposal, one would think that their new record label would want to pull out all the stops to promote the band’s new album.
But here is where this album is unique; it seems the band has decided to embrace a version of the new music industry trend.
Some established artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have come to pioneer this new trend with relative success.
Both went about distributing their music differently, but they were the same in terms of their core principals.
They’re unique in that both had ways to give their music for free, and had absolutely no record label to rely upon.
Ironically, the band is using a record label to distribute their new album to their fans for free via sponsorship.
All one has to do is add the mobile music company “Textango” to their friends list, and wait about 24 hours for an e-mail that’ll give one a link to the new album.
However, this is only a limited time offer that will last throughout the first two weeks of the album’s release.
After that, all must pay the regular price of admission.
The album, of course, has to be good enough to merit the promotion behind it, at least one would assume.
Needless to say for the most part it is.
From the first track, “As Long As We Can,” to the last track, “Die For You,” fans get an album that provides the band’s unique balls to the wall adrenaline sensibility that they only seem capable of providing.
The album’s current single, “The Western Wall,” is currently the most played song on the rock radio station, KROQ.
While this song in particular is hardly the standout track of the album.
That distinction is reserved for songs like “Something To Live For” and “As Long As We Can,” which definitely provides fans with a glimpse of the sound that permeates with this album.
Not every track on this album sounds as strong as the note worthy ones.
For the most part, the majority of them are good enough.
Of course, one would be foolish to not mention the awesome instrumental work that has been created for this album.
Yet, when taking into account the entirety of the album, and needing to find its place between a good or great album, it would seem that this effort leans more towards the former than the latter.
By no stretch of the imagination will this album be the changing the way the music industry distributes it product.
The truth is that this album is nowhere near good enough to warrant that kind of effect.
But it is what it is, and for fans that should be enough.
