Album Review: Rancid - '...Honor Is All We Know'

After busying themselves with their many other projects over the last five years, Rancid have finally put out their eighth studio record, and shortest album to date, '...Honor Is All We Know.' The band seems to acknowledge all of this with the opening track Back Where I Belong, claiming they have been gone way too long, set to some bouncing punk rock and their trademark dual vocals.

There aren't too many surprises here, it's pretty much exactly what you would expect from a Rancid record: melodic punk songs, short fast, pump up music like Raise Your Fist that has plenty of gang vocals moments and rough vocals, set to some wondrous power chords and solid drumming. We're sure that Rancid fans wouldn't have it any other way.

The fact that this record is pretty predictable however makes it really only appealing to those existing fans, we probably shouldn't expect anything new or revolutionary from Rancid. But, in turn, that makes it hard to say too much about this record besides, "It sounds like Rancid." The band is sticking pretty close to the formula the whole way through.

If anything, it seems like there is more of a focus on melody, but in fairness Rancid have always had a melodic element to their music so maybe we're just scrapping the bottom of the barrel for something to say.

Lyrically, the group moves from talking bad about their mothers to violence being diabolical, to someone who has pissed them off to the point where they are no longer welcome in the clique, day to day kind of stuff set to get-drunk-and-sing-a-long style puffs of fun.

At the end of the record Everybody's Sufferin', possibly the most negative song, also happens to sound the happiest with a boppy ska vibe that almost hilariously offsets the lyrical theme of the song. Things then go back to some more fast punk on Grave Digger just to bring it all back into focus.

It's the short, rough, punk rock that Rancid are known for, nothing more, nothing less.

1.  Back Where I Belong

2.  Raise Your Fist

3.  Collision Course

4.  Evil's My Friend

5.  Honour Is All We Know

6.  A Power Inside

7.  In the Streets

8.  Face Up

9.  Already Dead

10.  Diabolical

11.  Malfunction

12.  Now We're Through With You

13.  Everybody's Sufferin'

14.  Grave Digger