Suicide Machines: War Profiteering Is Killing Us All : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In the mid-nineties, Detroit's Suicide Machines sold a few hundred thousand copies of their major-label debut thanks to the Third Wave ska revival that had been ushered in by bands such as Sublime, Rancid and No Doubt. The commercial success of ska punk bit the dust around the same time Gwen Stefani unglued her bindi, but Suicide Machines dropped their anchor in 1996 and, goddamn it, they're not leaving without a fight. Their sixth album, War Profiteering Is Killing Us All, sounds like any other Suicide Machines record. Whether or not that's a good thing depends on how much you want to hear chink-ka-chink guitar riffs, funk-inspired bass lines, double-kick-drum pedaling, hardcore vocals and more "who-oh-oh" than any sensible person would count, all diffused into two-minute socially conscious ditties -- in the year 2005. Strictly from a musical standpoint, War Profiteering has a few unexpectedly tuneful winners ("Ghosts on Sunset Blvd.," "Hands Tied," "Bottomed Out"), as well as a couple whose sheer ferocity impresses (the title track, "17% 18 to 25"). Sadly, the band tends to focus its political commentary on targets that are so easy (Yes, heroin can ruin your life! And nuclear power plants are bad!), they may as well have called the album Mean People Suck.