I first became aware of Dead Rejects last year when they released a fantastic split with Positive Junk named Downers. Now the New Jersey skacore duo are back with a brand new album named Grave Mistakes which was released back in September.
Graves Mistakes begins with the instrumental track The Fire Fades. Serving as an introduction to the album it is a piano led song with spooky undertones before launching into some heavy punk rock. The piano followed by the punk rock works really well and gives the illusion of punk smashing down the more classical style. This all leads in nicely to Learning To Live, the album's second track. The song immediately reminds me of what I loved about Dead Rejects when I first heard them. It's crusty ska punk in a similar vein to Leftöver Crack but much more accessible. The dual vocals on Learning To Live are great with Shane Sparacello's croaky voice taking the verses and Mike Benus' more traditional punk rock voice executing the chorus brilliantly. Whatever Forever is a song about not fitting in with what's deemed normal in society and frankly not caring what people think about you. It's a song that really takes you on a ride musically. Starting out with some upbeat ska that will get you skanking, Whatever Forever gradually shifts through the gears and then by the end it is a full on angry punk rock annihilation of a song. Happy fun skanking at the song's smiley beginnings turns into a massive riot of a mosh pit. The fourth song is the album's title track, Grave Mistakes. What a good song this is. Grave Mistakes is about learning from mistakes and not wallowing in self pity. This is a good, strong, uplifting message. The chorus in particular is superb - "Raise Your Hand And Scream, Be Proud Of Who You Are, And The Things That You Have Achieved, 'Cause Scars Will Heal In Time, But It's Up To You To Leave The Past Behind." The dual vocals again are great and give the song a lot of energy.
Get Weird is about a night of excessive partying, taking some things it is not legal to and hoping that you haven't made a fool of yourself. It's a fast and frantic song that really shows off Sparacello's excellent raw primal screams on the chorus. This is one of the harder hitting songs on Grave Mistakes. Giving Up is a song that jumps between ska punk and ferocious hardcore expertly. The track is about the feeling of despair with the world and just wanting to give up on it. The anger in the chorus of "This World Is Gonna Burn" really hits the message hard and the verses do a great job of setting up this anger. The outro of Giving Up is a delight and the hint of gang vocals makes me think of rallying the troops together and rebelling against everything. Dead Rejects are joined by New York band The Stupid Stupid Henchmen on the following song, Worldwide Suicide. Worldwide Suicide hits you like a wrecking ball and continues to pummel you for much of its four minute duration. There is a slight restbite during some short ska sections of the song, kind of making you believe the assault is finished before it starts all over again. There is so much anger and venom on this song it's hard not to get caught up in the emotion of it all. The final song on Grave Mistakes in named 29. I must admit I was not expecting to see an almost five minute long song on a Dead Rejects release but that's what we have here. 29 is a song dedicated to Shane's brother Jimmy who sadly passed away last year. As you can imagine there is plenty of emotion in the song where Shane sings about missing his brother and how he will never be forgotten because he will live on through Shane and the rest of the band. 29 feels like a very fitting tribute to a departed brother.
Grave Mistakes is a very good skacore album. It's hard and angry but it's also a lot of fun. It has some great lyrics and fantasic musicianship. At just seven actual songs I thought it was a little short but when it's this good does it really matter?
(Also, if you stream and download from Bandcamp there are instrumental tracks of Get Weird and 29.)
Stream and download Grave Mistakes here: https://deadrejectsnj.bandcamp.com/album/grave-mistakes
Like Dead Rejects here: https://www.facebook.com/DeadRejectsNJ/
This review was written by Colin Clark.
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