CD:Rockit Science Artist: Team Rockit Label: Firetone Records Rating: 2/5 Best Song: There’s No You In Team Reviewer: Keith Rosson

Looks like this band’s out a few full-lengths before, so it comes as no surprise that – sonically, at least – it’s some nicely produced and proficient stuff that leans heavy and mean on the rock n roll swagger. I mean, for a 3 piece, they can lay down some riffs pretty decently; reminding me in many ways of rockpunk acts the Black Furies or the Turbo A.C.s. I guess after you put out three or four full-lengths, you start to get a bit more confident in the studio. To their credit, these guys never genre-hop (it’s all rock all the time here) but they never fall into the trap of making one song sound like a carbon copy of the one that came before it.

Still, that’s about where happy-time ends. Lyrically, things start to get really icky really fast, and these dudes begin to come off a bit like douchebags by, oh, the second song or so. The lyrics to this entire record essentially consist of documenting what swinging dicks these guys are – there’s lots of bravado, and lots cocksure claims of sexual prowess in the ladies department, etc. It’s pretty much the Supersuckersesque version of much of the “tits, ass and cash” oeuvre that’s inundated mainstream hip hop these days – it’s all about ego and fucking; Team Rockit’s just doing it with pretty good guitar solos and less creative rhyme schemes. I mean, some choice cuts from “String Of Pearls” should give you an idea of their shtick: “Your Body (sic) is hot, I don’t wann (sic) dance / But I’ll do what it takes, To get in your pants / Come with me, You can get on top / Give it my all, I’m not gonna stop / Gonna Give ‘em all a string of pearls (X2) / Every woman and every girl / Gonna Give ‘em all a string of pearls.”

Wow. Is it just a case of my PC fascism flaring up, or are those lyrics even remotely witty at all? I mean, sure, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m probably taking these guys way too seriously. But in all honesty, the only thing Rockit Science makes me want to do is go listen to the Lazy Cowgirls or Riverboat Gamblers – at least Pat Todd knows how to write a song about wanting to bump uglies that’s catchy and halfway smart, without sounding like he culled his lyrics from the wall next to the condom machine.

In closing, ladies and germs, Team Rockit’s presenting themselves as a band that can lay down some decent rock songs. They also come across as kind of a one trick pony, and that pony seems to be playing the guitar solely for the fact that he might get laid because of it.