Pennywise: Straight Ahead : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The title of Pennywise's latest pretty much sums up the eleven-year-old punk band's approach: blunt and linear to the point of tunnel vision. On Straight Ahead -- its fifth album in all and second since the suicide of founding member Jason Thirsk -- the band's familiar anti-authoritarian, pro-individualist stance treads close to the very rigidity it feigns to oppose. Bristling with righteous ire, the tracks all but march in formation, with vocalist Jim Lindberg acting as drill sergeant as he barks out libertarian lines like "I'm gonna make it on my own/Dictator on a throne/Make my own philosophy/U.S. of me" ("My Own Country"). To their credit, Pennywise infuse their lyrics with a sense of hope rare in Southern Cali punk, urging discouraged kids, "When you feel yourself going down/Pick yourself up off the ground" ("Still Can Be Great"). But too often these messages are lost in a dense dogma pudding. Pennywise may still rock hard and fast, but their ham-fisted rhetoric is beginning to drag them down. (RS 816-817)

NEVA CHONIN