With two thirds of a band that I adored when I was younger, The Drolls have been pretty high on my bands to keep an eye on radar. I've been anticipating this release ever since they first formed a few years ago and put out a single in 2019. Ean, the other member of Sicko, had also relatively recently formed a new band – The Subjunctives – and put out a debut album with a pretty familiar sound and I was hoping The Drolls had also continued this trend. Although Sicko were never on Lookout Records, they easily could have been (they put out a split with Lookout alumni The Mr T Experience), and to my mind if you've loved it before you can never truly grow bored of that sort of pop punk.
Nobody Move is the second track and it's more jaunty and distinct from both the opener and the sound of their previous band, signalling that not everything on this album is carbon copied. There's still a liveliness to it, but it's the first sign that their sound can be a little different. Whilst it should be noted that at their heart they have Sicko's pop punk DNA, The Drolls are a band that are a little more 'refined'. There's an element of The Replacements/Big Star/Lemonheads/Sugar all in here. An indie guitar sound seems to have found its way into Denny and Josh's playing as they've gotten older.
The rest of the tracks on the album jump and dash around, picking up on this power pop punk vibe as well as songs that are more rooted in the Sicko vein. Sad Little King, Worse Things and Mythology, for example, are more fixed on the power side. Whereas, listen to a song like Bad Ear and you'd be forgiven for thinking it could have come from them at the end of the 90s. Alternate Timeline is the only song that I'm a bit nonplussed about as it's a bit slow, but it comes at the end of the first side of the record so, if you're listening to it on vinyl, it feels like the right place for it.
The second half of the album starts with Downstream, which brings us back up to speed and then it's Rehashed: Rehashed – a 'reworking' of the Sicko song, Rehashed, that sits perfectly in the second half of the album. It's a little slower, which allows you more time to take in the vocals, and the line "you've heard this song before 'cause I'm not gonna care about it anymore" sums up how impeccable their sense of humour seems to be. A song about bands sounding the same from a record put out almost 30 years ago now has me really grinning.
The album finishes with In Big Country, a cover by the band Big Country. It's a great way to end and I can't help think it's another nod to their past as their previous band's debut also ended with a cover (Closer To Fine by the Indigo Girls, which to this day remains one of my most favourite covers).
If you like The Drolls, you're never not going to compare them to Sicko. I think that's fine as, after all, the band themselves make no effort to hideaway from their past. Thankfully, it doesn't differ too much, but it differs enough to sound fresh and relevant. As the band state, "Two of us used to be in another band together. Now we're in this band." and that it's an album with "some energetic power pop songs about ageing, wasting time, the environment, political BS and one really fun cover song" …Pretty much what I want from a pop punk album.
Stream and download The Puget Sound on Bandcamp here.
Like The Drolls on Facebook here.
This review was written by Chris Bishton.
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