OurStage

To me, splits have always been an interesting concept. Instead of going the normal route of releasing an individual EP, a band, or label, decides to release an album with songs from two separate bands. More often than not the split seems to fall on its face. Whether it be because of a weaker band or a clashing of styles, it is sometimes fairly obvious they should have simply been released individually. However, every now and then a split will be released by two bands that seem to complement each other perfectly, such as the Hot Water Music & Leatherface split released some time ago. This, of course, brings me to Dropping Expectations by The Bastard Suns & No Fuego. The Bastard Suns are the first half of the 14 track Dropping Expectations. And, to be completely honest, I wasn’t expecting much from them. Luckily it didn’t even take the entirety of the first track, “My Pint,” to prove me wrong. The Bastard Suns do for reggae-influenced punk music what The Flatliners do for ska-influenced punk. That is to say, while they don’t exactly do anything new, they take a hybrid style of music and do a more than respectable job with it. I admittedly have a soft spot for bands that blend different genres together successfully, but they just do it so well. Instead of walking the line between the respective genres, The Bastard Suns are not afraid to speed things up like the better punk bands; nor are they shy to lean heavily on their reggae influence. It is nearly impossible to guess where they’re going to go with a song, but it will no doubt be a lot of fun figuring it out. Lead vocalist Clayton Hiers has a great voice, and what’s more he seems to have mastered the subtle nuances of changing his voice to fit the music. This, obviously, comes in handy with the type of music his band plays. On the beginning track “My Pint” he has a strong resemblance to Alex Brugge of Angel City Outcasts, whereas on the later reggae-influenced tracks the comparison would not be near as apt. Lyrically, the band once again shows their ability to seamlessly change things up. Often, sometimes in the same song, they’ll go from the fun “drinking” lyrics to the more socially-conscious lyrics often found in punk bands and are all the better for it. While I would like to spend more time on The Bastard Suns, there is another band on this album. It just took me a while to figure that out, because I was too busy replaying the first half of the album. No Fuego are yet another hybrid band, but this time they play the bagpipe-laden celtic punk much like The Dropkick Murphys. And they start off with a bang. “Savvi” is a fun song that had me pumped up for the rest of the album. Unfortunately, after that song the quality drops off quite a bit. For one thing, they never seem quite sure just what to DO with the bagpipe. This is kind of odd, seeing as how it’s one of the major points of the band. In a few of the songs it just seems to sit there in the background, existing for the sole reason of giving the bagpipe player something to do. Some of the lyrics are not particularly great, and sometimes they seem to get in the way of the song. This is where the difficulty with splits comes into play. I have a feeling if No Fuego were on a different album I would have a much more positive tone to my review of them. They’re really not a bad band; in fact I enjoy their half of the album. But they are, by far, outshined by The Bastard Suns and it reflects badly on them. So, while they show a lot of potential, I don’t see myself going past their first song on the album often. I suppose that means the split is a success; it introduced me to two bands I had previously never heard of and made me very interested in their future output. Really, I don’t think much more could be reasonably asked for.

This was the third time in just a few weeks that I got to see the Bastard Suns from Atlanta and I must say that they have become one of my favorite live bands. After playing the SoCo Music Experience, opening up for Against Me!, one week later opening up for Pennywise and Strung Out, now they were having their first headlining show at the Masquerade. So it was a quite busy month for the band. They brought their label mates and friends from No Fuego along, with whom they recorded the Split-CD “Dropping Expectations” for Unable Records. I missed the first band again but got in right on time to see the second band. I don’t remember their name, but that doesn’t bother me at all, because they sucked! They are friends of the Bastard Suns, but play horribly boring 90’s alternative rock. It was actually painful. Sorry guys, but there would have been many other punk bands to fill in that slot that would have been excited to play the Masquerade and fit much better. After that No Fuego from Baton Rouge, LA saved the evening! They do a mix of punk rock a la Hot Water Music mixed with Bagpipes and a bit of Dropkick Murphys in there. They played a few songs from their Split with the Suns and also from their full length they put out by themselves. It was a good show and you definitely need to check them out! Then it was the Bastard Suns and they have apparently become a pretty popular band in Atlanta, since there were about 100 to 150 people there to see them, which is not bad at all for a local band. They played a solid show, doing their usual reggae and ska influenced drinking punk rock and the crowd loved it. I think we will hear lots more of this band in the future, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they become a big band someday. But in my opinion the Bastard Suns are not a headlining band, yet. They were much more fun when they only got 30 minutes and played song after song, without trying stupid stuff like a drum solo and so on. But even that couldn’t ruin their good and powerful performance. If you want to check them out, I’d advice you to buy the Split CD, cause you get the best of both bands and that’s a very good deal. It really is a very good CD So check both of them out and check at the Masquerade’s myspace page in a few days for pictures: www.myspace.com/thebastardsuns