@apartofhim's Top 20 of 2014 - #17 Rancid "...Honor Is All We Know"

via apartofhim.blogspot.com

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Rancid has been spacing out the release of their albums... and the wait is totally worth it!

Here's what The AV Club's Jonah Bayer had to say about the album:

At this point in its career Rancid is essentially the modern-day equivalent of Social Distortion in the sense that it isn’t so much a punk band anymore as it is an institution to be occasionally revisited. People go to the group’s shows to hear hits like “Salvation” and “Ruby Soho,” and newer songs are more of a courtesy to the band than something the audience is actually clamoring for. (To further that analogy, most hardcore Social Distortion fans would be hard-pressed to name any original songs post-1996’s White Light, White Heat, White Trash.) 

However, while the group’s eighth studio album …Honor Is All We Know sounds predictably like Rancid, it also manages to stand on its own as a testament to the band’s ability to continue crafting lasting anthems. Opener “Back Where I Belong” makes it sound as though Rancid just finished playing Saturday Night Live last week instead of 19 years ago. With Matt Freeman’s nimble-fingered bass playing leading the charge, the two-minute rocker silences cynics via guitarist-vocalist Tim Armstrong’s instantly recognizable sneer, soaring harmonies, and an unwavering backbeat courtesy of the band’s latest addition, Branden Steineckert (who has still been in Rancid for eight years now). Read the rest at The AV Club.