Transplants: Transplants : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

With high-profile gigs in Blink-182 and Boxcar Racer, Travis Barker has broken out as punk rock's first superstar drummer. On this latest side project, Barker singlehandedly drags his old-school-leaning band mates (singer Rob Aston and Rancid guitarist Tim Armstrong) into the future with some timely percussive tricks, incorporating frantic jungle beats into "Romper Stomper" and hip-hop rhythms on the wave-your-hands anthem "Tall Cans in the Air." Though he lacks his drummer's inventiveness, Aston's guttural bark makes his verbal taunts to "flip you like a flapjack" sound more menacing than they should. Armstrong, for his part, still sounds as if he misses the Clash -- not a bad thing, but not in line with the forward thinking on this disc. Thanks to Barker, he and the rest of the punk community might finally have something new to say.

KIRK MILLER
(RS 910 – November 28, 2002)