The Damned Things - High Crimes

I remember almost a decade ago when the formation of this supergroup with members of Anthrax, Alkaline Trio, Every Time I Did, and Fall Out Boy was announced and that thinking at the time what an odd team that made. In hindsight, they weren’t the most unlikely of figures to link up for a collaborative side project, but I was torn between my favor for Anthrax and Alkaline Trio and my displeasure for Fall Out Boy. And my hesitation to check their debut album out, even though I knew it deserved my fair chance at a listen through it, eventually led to me never getting around to it.

(Edit: My memory of the band’s original and second phase line-ups failed me. Dan Andriano of Alkaline Trio was not part of the original line-up; he joined earlier this year. I was most likely confusing my intrigue about The Damned Things around the time of that announcement and my budding interest in Alkaline Trio around the same time nine years ago with the more recent announcement of The Damned Things’ reactivation).

Nine years later and the band is back together for round two and I figure I may as well give this one a shot before it slips through the cracks. Being that it was formed by punk enthusiasts and members of bands that already specialized in forms of punk rock I had the impression that The Damned Things was a heavily punk-focused project itself as well, but it turns out have been formed under the intention of more of a classic alternative rock and heavy metal focus. And High Crimes certainly follows in line with the band’s original intent, though the members’ punk rock pedigrees do indeed seep through their compositional tendencies, and this is quite evident from the spelled out chant on “Something Good” and the rumbly bass lines and quick percussive rhythm on the opening track “Cells”, on which the bluesy guitar leads and heaving vocal delivery do well to spice the song up as well. But honestly though, the album loses steam pretty quickly with its lack of concrete musical ideas aside from what holds it together thematically.

The occasional moments of dynamic like the tempo shifts and production tricks that keep “Storm Charmer” somewhat interesting are helpful, and Keith Buckley’s raspy vocals keep the energy where it needs to be for an album of this style. But for the most part, so much of the instrumentation (particularly the guitar sections) is so wallpapery and made more to capture the aesthetic of the sound more than anything else, which is not sufficient on its own in a style of music that depends so much on captivating songwriting and tangible energy.

And it’s those crucial two components that this album is missing just a little too much of. The songwriting just kind of continually bides its time while only half the band ever seems to be energized at any given time. When my first, underwhelmed impressions of the album led me to question whether I have perhaps become too desensitized to the classic side of the genre with all the death metal and black metal and thick-as-fuck doom and sludge I inundate myself with, I remembered how much I loved the rather stylistically and contextually similar, but far more urgently performed and interestingly written 2017 Mutoid Man album, War Moans.

To me, High Crimes just seems like it was made more out of a desire to hear more of a certain type of music than it was out of inspiration from actual tangible ideas for songs of that kind of music, which, again, is the lifeblood of that kind of music. And if writing in the more classic alternative rock and heavy metal styles isn’t something these guys are consistent or fluent in, then it would make sense that the lack of meticulous grooming that is often required to make such great songs in that style is apparently noticeably absent from the songs here. If this came out in the era 12 to 20 years ago when this style was more prevalent, it would have blended in unsuspectingly with the average of the crowd.

We should totally make an album like that, man/10