Pistol Grip – Tear It All Down!

The L.A. punkers known as Pistol Grip are back with their third full length album on BYO Records. Tear it All Down is twelve songs of energetic punk rock furry. Unfortunately, each song tends to be full of that same energetic punk rock flurry without every really changing it. The album flows easily, but you never know when one song ends and the other begins. Pistol Grip seem to have stumbled onto a certain direct musical pattern, and refuse to change it. Its good for the first few songs, but then tends to get boring. Stax’s vocals are strong and powerful, but at times incomprehensible; which is a same considering his lyrics are pretty good. Talking about murders, rebelling, religion, faith, and more, Pistol Grip keep their political status up.

But the lyrics don’t do much to save the monotonous of it all. Each song is short, fast, and hard. Just street punk anthem after street punk anthem, followed by a street punk anthem. The only time they really change the flow of the album is with the second last track, Closing Time. This is a nice, slow, acoustic ballard type song. Why does it stand out so much? Because it is different then the rest of the album, it broke the Pistol Grip mold a bit and showed that they could play slightly different musical styles. But other then that one track, you don’t seem to get much in the realm of originality.

Although I believe that Pistol Grip‘s sound is full of energy and excitement, the CD doesn’t really do that much for the listener, IE: me. I would definitely try and see them live if I could, because they are so energetic; and that would make for an incredible live show experience. But as far as the CD is concerned, I don’t see myself rocking to it that much.