Social Distortion
White Light, White Heat, White Trash

THE REVIEW

That cubicle was a hovel filled with the most rancid smell that half a dozen living human bodies could generate. The kind of thing that if you ran your hand through your hair and then shook it over the salad, it was already well dressed with oil, salt, and everything else. The big room where parents left us to spend the summer months was full of all those things that, once bought and chewed for a more or less long period, had finally been digested and dumped here, far from sight and memory. Because sometimes even just seeing how they squandered their money so disgracefully can hurt the heart and bloat the bile. In that poorly soundproofed stube, we could make all the noise we wanted, and it was there with a never-tiring stereo always on that we spent the fullest summers of our lives. We drank gasoline with quite a few octanes with a cigarette in hand and sandpaper shaped like a nice pair of abrasive riffs to clean our mouths. That year a tight punk rock CD came out, but with a hint of melody that drove us crazy. I still remember the copied cassette, with the title half-written since it was too long to fit on that strip of paper. Social Distorsion, with an s, the name: English in a small Alpine provincial town in the middle of nowhere hadn't arrived yet, and there was no internet, and even if there was, the connection was a slow and sticky luxury not accessible to everyone.

Whole days writing identical songs in broken English, abusing and mistreating a couple of guitars. Two crooked, warped six-strings, rotten and toxic voices trying to imitate Mike Ness and Social Distortion (with a t this time): our idols of the moment. Our girlfriends were either completely deficient or truly loved us, unlike our current partners/wives, because staying on that worn-out couch listening to ten hours of uninterrupted hellish metal had no other reasonable explanation. When we finished the demo, we were convinced we had birthed a new masterpiece of music and were ready to sing at the village fair. Well, that was just the first step of a dazzling career now on the launch pad.

Born in 1978, I first got to know "Social Distortion" that summer of 1997 when I devoured with my crew the already mentioned, or perhaps not if I reread it correctly, "White Light, White Heat, White Trash": a clear mockery/sarcastic tribute to the Velvet Underground. I immediately fell in love with that imposing sonic wall generated by the Ness/Dannell riffs. In this album, it is undeniable to notice a heavier sound that leans towards hard rock with strong punk hues compared to the past. I remember my throat screaming in pain while trying to get that angry, rusty, yet melodic wheeze out as I sang the verses of "I Was Wrong": a sort of mea culpa for the frontman's past mistakes, who had enormous drug problems. And how could I sweep under the rug (the memory) the wild pogo with friends while "Don't Drug Me Down" flashed by: a track against those who try to drag you down into oblivion and don't accept you for who you are. Reminiscences of classic punk in "Through These Eyes" which, in three minutes without variations, charges the listener. Mike Ness's band in this latest work with Dannell on guitar alternates more paced and melodic tracks ("When The Angels Sing" and "Crown of Thorns") with others decidedly more metallic and abrasive like "Down On the World Again", "Pleasure Seeker", and "Gotta Know the Rules" which recall the lyrics and sound of the debut "Mommy's Little Monster" thirteen years earlier.

Unlike most bands dedicated to this genre, Social Distortion over time had the courage to innovate by adding country, cowpunk, blues inserts to their early career repertoire, emphasizing a greater melodic streak (See."Prison Bound" and "Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell"). Another factor that sets them apart from punk rock formations is the scanty production that marked their career; letting a few years pass between a new release and the previous one, Social Distortion is one of those few bands that can boast a high-level discography without skeletons in the closet.

More than once I've had to hear from the know-it-all bookworm of the moment, (in most cases a nerd who has never touched, for heaven's sake there's the risk of bubonic plague, a musical instrument in his life), stating with smug egocentricity like he had the truth in his pocket that adolescent music shouldn't be listened to in adulthood. Well, I grew up with Soundgarden, Rem, AC/DC, Metallica, Nirvana, Faith No More, Jam, Black Sabbath, and a thousand others that have been the soundtrack to my youth and I still listen to them. And when I put an album like "White Light, White Heat, White Trash" on the stereo, it feels like reading a famous novel by Oscar Wilde; only, I'm the painting that ages instead of the Dorian Gray of the moment who, damn it, continues to go around with the unchanged lightness of times gone by!