Big D And The Kid’s Table – How It Goes

Big D And The Kid’s Table‘s new album How It Goes was a very anticipated release for me based solely on the fact of all the good press I had heard about them. I had never heard a single song by them but hundreds of people were labeling it the best ska release of the year and saying how incredibly great it is; so I figured, why not pick up a copy and see what all the fuss is about? Sadly, it didn’t quite live up to it’s expectations.

Now don’t get me wrong, How It Goes is still a damn good CD. It’s still not quite as good as I expected. It starts off with a very surprising two-minute long introduction. The Sounds Of Alston Village is a keyboard-led ska musical piece that surprises you instantly. You really have no idea what to expect until they burst into their “fuck you” to all Los Angeles people in L.A.X.. This five minute onslaught of swears and insults backed by horns and energized guitar riffs grabs your attention and shows that Big D has some potential even after the sketchy introduction. This is your feeling for most of the album. You can hear that they have great potential in their ska-punk sound, but at times you feel they could do a little bit more.

Luckily, not all twenty songs sound exactly the same, because if they did it would make for an extremely boring release. They are able to switch the tone of the album around effortlessly with some guitar driven songs, some horn driven songs, some slower songs and some speedy songs. The female guest vocalist on Safe Haven throws yet another twist in your direction without being too overbearing.

Even though the last three songs on the album will never be played from my disc thanks to a huge crack in the CD, the rest of How It Goes will probably find its way into my CD player periodically. It’s definitely not one of the best ska releases i’ve heard in a while, but it is still a fun release and having twenty tracks and lasting around seventy-two minutes, How It Goes is a damn long CD for today’s standards – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. So it is well worth your money if you are a fan of the band or of the ska-punk genre. And I’m sure that these guys would put on a very energizing live show, and I hope I’ll have the chance to see them live sometime in the near future.