Pennywise – Reason to Believe

Pennywise are Pennywise and they’ll always be Pennywise. You can always count on Fletcher and the guys from Hermosa Beach to be there banging out their tunes on stages across the globe as they continue to be one of the most consistent melodic skate punk bands around. Still, the band doesn’t want to remain predictable and boy did they surprise us last year. Since 1988 they’ve been on Epitaph. All eight of their albums have been on Epitaph. When you thought Pennywise, you thought Epitaph and that was it. Not anymore though. Now they’re changing things up, leaving the label that they started with and going toMySpace Records in an effort to give the CD to their fans for free. Yes – for free. Add Textango as a friend on MySpace within two weeks of its March 25th release date and you’ll get the record e-mailed to you. Of course, you can still go out and buy the actual disc in CD stores too. So yes, Pennywise are still Pennywise but they’re changing things up a bit.

That slight change is coming through in the album itself too. While still distinctly the Pennywise sound we’ve all grown accustomed to over the past eight albums, there’s a slight variation in the band’s sound that is hard to pinpoint exactly but is definitely there. Straight from the opening track (Intro)As Long As We Can you can hear the change. Jim Lindberg’s vocals seem slightly smoother and not delivered with as much venom as he normally does. On the title track there is a stronger punk-metal feel akin to Strung Out and while no other has that metallic edge to it, there still is a slight change.

Reason To Believe doesn’t seem to have the same punch as some of it’s predecessors but at the same time feels much more cohesive and energizing than The Fuse. While the drumming will definitely get the pit riled up, there seems to be a much more prominent emphasis on the melodic part of their melodic skate punk. The backup vocals help that feeling too with a massive amount of “woahs” and the likes thrown in. So on top of the Pennywise structured style, it also has a heavy Bad Religion feel with a little bit of A Wilhelm Scream thrown in too.

Lyrically, the band is still political like always but have switched it up a bit there too. Instead of being angry and attacking the system, Reason To Believe sees Pennywise searching for just that: a reason to believe. The lyrical content is much more depressing as it has a tone of someone looking at the state of things and just going “what… how… what now?” Its a state of shock and awe as every song sees them looking for something. On Confusion, Lindberg says “I can’t believe what I have found, the world has been turned upside down” and in It’s Not Enough To Believe he utters “We wanna know just how this story ends, we all just throw up out hands and wait in hopeless wonder and with nothing left to give.”

So Pennywise have changed a bit. Changed the way you may hear this record and changed their sound slightly; but at the end of the day it’s still Pennywise. The formula still works twenty years after they created it and Reason To Believe ends up being a decisively strong and cohesive melodic skate punk album.