Rancid – …Honor Is All We Know – Review

It is now almost five years since the last official work of Rancid (2009 – Let the Dominoes Fall) and here is finally the new album of the Californian punk band. On the scene since 1991, Rancid have become a “must” for listeners of street punk and ska punk. Listening to the new 14 tracks (total length about half an hour) you can recognize the very old punk style that has characterized their career: hoarse voices as always, battery overbearing, distorted guitars and impressive bass lines (God bless Matt Freeman) . Never boring even with slightly variegated songs, they manage to keep you with attentive ears: the album begins immediately with “Back where I belong,” in which Tim Armstrong  sings “I’ve been away too long and I’m back where I belong” (is he talking about the Rancid break before the release of this album?). Could there not be a song praising the fight “against the power”? I would say no, and here comes “Raise your Fist”. Going down the track-list there are only beautiful songs which excite you and make you want to rock out. Ska keyboards and backbeats and are the center of “Evil Is My Friend”, “Malfunction” and “Everybody’s Sufferin”. Rancid’s fans will not be disappointed by this new album. To signal a greater presence to the voice of bassist Matt Freeman and the strange ad campaign that the band has done for the release of the new album: album listenable free on their YouTube channel even before the release and three tracks in preview revealed in a video in which they are played live (n.b. I said “strange”, it doesn’t exclude that I personally have enjoyed everything).
TRACKLIST WITH RATINGS:
01 – Back Where I Belong – 8
02 – Raise your Fist – 8,5
03 – Collision Course – 8
04 – Evil’s My Friend – 9
05 – Honor Is All We Know – 8,5
06 – A Power Inside – 7,5
07 – In the Streets – 8
08 – Face Up – 8,5
09 – Already Dead – 7,5
10 – Diabolical – 8
11 – Malfunction – 9
12 – Now We’re Through With You – 8,5
13 – Everybody’s Sufferin’ – 8
14 – Grave Digger – 9
ALBUM RATINGS: 8,5

KEY SENTENCE:
“Don’t change a goddamn thing, hold your head up high
When the hard times come, we have the strength to defy”  – Honor is All we Know
Reviewed by D.C.