The Bronx
The Bronx

THE REVIEW

"They are killing us, they are killing us mercilessly".

Agreed, this is not the first line of the album, nor perhaps the most important, the most poetic, the most evocative. But it is the damned truth. The truth that appears to the eyes of Joby J. Ford and company, all more or less active in the punk rock scene of Los Angeles, which allows them to have the right friendships, including Gilby Clarke, former guitarist of Guns'N Roses, producer of the striking debut album "The Bronx," preceded by the equally beautiful EP "La muerte viva."

The violent reality of the City of Angels bursts forth from the tracks of this album, and the band spits and sweats it out in a wild and intense manner, as befits bands that choose to express their emotions using rock, a wild music by definition. There is hardcore, post-hardcore, rock, punk, and whatever else you want in this album, but that's not the point. The point is that this is an absolutely sincere, emotional, and thrilling album, incredibly powerful, intense, full of tracks to memorize, the kind you can't wait to see live to sing back at the band's face. And if the band is The Bronx, trust me, you’ll find yourself drenched in sweat and absolutely satisfied at the end of their (beautiful) live set.

It's also a heavy album, dense, viscous, like the blood flowing from the mouth of a female vampire forming the band's name on the cover. "THE BRONX." The dangerous neighborhood par excellence, the neighborhood of tough guys, criminals, immigrants, drug dealers, living day by day, basketball games of black people, and Italian-American pizzerias hiding mafia hideouts, the neighborhood of the lost, those looking for revenge, the ugly part of New York, East Coast. Narrated by more or less famous writers and directors. But they (The Bronx) have nothing to do with New York, they're from Los Angeles, West Coast. Where people tan, surf, have pool parties, with the rich of Hollywood, and the rich working for Hollywood. But also Mexican immigrants, immigrants from all the unfortunate places in the United States, all the losers who came seeking fortune in the cinema mecca and ended up doing a job they hate and living a life they didn’t want. Here, The Bronx perhaps stands on this side, but maybe not even that. They are in the midst of this, they revel in it and meanwhile tell us what it means to live all this. Losing faith in something someone had told them was beautiful to believe in. Losing faith in the system, in the unfolding and mere occurrence of things. In accepting passively the things that happen around, things much bigger than us, which perhaps it's better to let be, let them crush us.

Or maybe not. “What's left of California? What's left of Los Angeles?” they ask, in the song from which I also extracted the first phrase of this rambling review, “What's left of my broken heart?” After all, perhaps they still want to contribute in some way, at least by providing their point of view, anything but trivial and obvious. I honestly don't know where I'm going with this, but if you approach this album, I strongly recommend you to read the lyrics, really beautiful, a perfect mix of anger and desperation, sung in melodic choruses, making them little gems of hope, drowned and buried somewhere, under layers of rancor. Anyway, I do not possess the intellectual means to describe the sensations that this album provokes (in me), I simply recommend listening to it and giving it the utmost attention possible, and maybe do a little research on the web to understand the environment this band comes from and the one they move around in.

Spending a few words on the purely musical side of the album, what can I say, certainly a beautiful album, powerful, with melodic parts, more "hard" parts, and fast parts. No references to particular bands, just a good mix of many different influences. Just as a note of color, I tell you they love, among others, the Hard-Ons, an Australian power pop-punk band around for more than twenty years, never really noticed on large levels, but absolutely one of the best punk rock bands ever.

The start of "The Bronx" is one of the best with Heart-Attack American, which I consider one of the most beautiful intros heard in recent times in "hard" rock (p.s: maybe only second to the intro of their second album... Senor Hombres de Tamale+Little Stone... breathtaking stuff) then above all They Will Kill Us, I Got Chills, Notice of Eviction(!) and Kill My Friends. And already the titles should be quite eloquent about what kind of themes we're dealing with!

Almost psychedelic-stoner finale with Strobo Life (which I assure you live is annihilating(!?)) and upon reaching the end, it's inevitable to press play again. And maybe get "The Bronx II," which I do not venture to review for obvious reasons of incapacity.

"I'm done doing things I don't want to do
And I'm sick and tired of setting up to be like you
Fucked up thrown out and overdue
I'm fucking done.

There is no revolution "