Mad Caddies – Punk Rocksteady

Long running ska-punk and reggae act Mad Caddies are typically known for their range of skillful punk-rock inspired tracks that don’t hesitate to polish up the brass and turn up the upstrokes.  They’ve been a personal favourite for years, and have evolved with the times, maturing with age while maintaining the spark and swagger in their step that put them on the map.  Four years between albums is a bit of a wait, but the band has finally followed up, albeit in an unexpected way – a full covers album.

Each song is drawn from punk or related genres, and lovingly reworked into a primarily reggae-leaning copy under the banner, Punk Rocksteady.  It’s kind of what you’d expect if Fearless Records made a Punk Goes Reggae compilation, but only included one cover band, and the entire affair was produced by Fat Wreck Chord’s Fat Mike.  Or perhaps given Fat Mike’s involvement, the better comparison would be Me First And The Gimme Gimmes album, if Me First And The Gimme Gimmes were fronted by Mad Caddies’ vocalist Chuck Robertson.

The band covers a lot of ground in twelve tracks, and despite centring the album around a single genre, there’s a remarkable amount of diversity within and between songs.  Opener “Sorrow” is an easily recognizable cover of Bad Religion’s iconic single, but takes obvious liberties in tempo reduction to make the genre switch from melodic punk to hazy thumping upstroke.  Those familiar with the original versions of each track might feel a little restrained, as if a dog on a leash, being prevented from sprinting ahead to the tempo of the original track, forced to take a breath and saunter along with the reggae reimagining.  But considering how adept Mad Caddies are at adapting the source material by infusing their own spin along the way, listeners shouldn’t take long to become acclimatized to the revisions.

“Long Sleep” serves as a poster child to the possibilities of cover songs.  Featuring vocal contributions by Aimee Allen (The Interrupters) and Joshua Waters Rudge (The Skints), the band capitalizes on the Operation Ivy classic’s dark social imagery.  Allen’s smokey vocals help capture the throaty delivery of the verse alongside Robertson, while Rudge’s pseudo hip-hop vocals land against a thumping, dub-inspired beat between verses, propelling the track to memory for reasons all its own.  The combination is entirely unexpected for all the right reasons, with the potential of reeling in skeptics early in the record.

Another fairly unexpected path is the adaptation of Propagandhi’s “…And We Thought That Nation-States Were A Bad Idea.”  Considering that the band isn’t known for their big political narratives, the reggae and horn laced ska adaptation is quite palatable for the song’s images of “government death squads.”  The band’s playful nature comes out in Fat Mike stepping down from the producer’s booth to take a jab at his Canadian technical punk friends’ publicly acknowledged dislike of ska with a fun little rant that fades into obscurity in the track’s final moments.  These little extras and Easter eggs are exactly what makes Punk Rocksteady more than a typical covers album.  

Tracks that tend to follow the more predictable reggae transformations are done so with the skill and care as you’ve come to expect from the Mad Caddies. Green Day’s “She” serves as one of the few popular tracks that made it to the radio that you could play for your less punk-oriented friends and garner appreciation.  Meanwhile, “Some Kind of Hate” draws upon The Misfits, aided by hazy, lethargic landing organ notes and a quivering tempo.  The late Tony Sly’s solo work further receives the reggae treatment, with “Take Me Home” closing the album on a decidedly nostalgic note, that further reinforces Mad Caddies’ capacity to reggae-fy anything and everything under the sun.  

The worst that can be said about Punk Rocksteady is that it’s a little heavy on novelty, and may not become a listening staple outside of summer playlists.  But as a covers album, the disc succeeds wholeheartedly on giving fans a reason both to return to the Mad Caddies’ reggae engagements, and affording renewed purpose in revisiting some of punk’s more memorable blasts from the past.