Transplants

Although they were the greatest punk band of the '90s, Rancid never escaped the shadow of their musical and spiritual forebears, the Clash. It took this side project, featuring Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and newbie Rob Aston, for Rancid leader Tim Armstrong to finally catch up with the hip-hop generation. Mixing together soulful organ, big-beat loops, fist-pumping choruses, barrelhouse piano, Aston's hoarse gangsta raps, and Barker's snappy beats, Transplants reinvents gutter punk for turn-of-the-millennium California, where steamy streets teem with thugs of all ethnicities, and everyone carries a blaring boombox. On the album's best cut, "Tall Cans in the Air" (chorus: "Lemme see 'em/Fuck you!"), Aston vividly describes lives spent dealing dope, pulling guns, drinking Budweiser tallboys, and cruising around on low-rider bikes. Armstrong infuses the glorious mess with strains of melancholy, slurring tributes to dead buddies, and tempering Aston's shout with a croon that recalls Shane MacGowan of the Pogues. And the hip-hop generation contributes directly: Funkdoobiest's Son Doobie rhymes on "Diamonds and Guns," and a cover of the Wu-Tang Clan classic "C.R.E.A.M." recasts the original's money-grubbing assurance as down-and-out desperation. Never before has there been combat rock like this. (NICK CATUCCI)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide