Friday, December 29, 2006

New album preview for Max Cady’s Gun Crime

By Erin Rice

Updated 12:07 p.m., September 21, 2007

Back in December 2006 we brought you this preview of Max Cady's then unreleased CD Gun Crime. After much to-do and various setbacks, the guys will finally be able to release their sophomore album to the public. Check out their CD release party tonight at the Double Wide. For a preview of what to expect feel free to peruse the original preview of the album below:

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In a most unprofessional move, I have held off writing a preview for this as yet unnamed, rough mix for nearly three weeks now. The reason for this is that I was not quite sure at first what to say. In a new music atmosphere full of rock subgenres, like emo, screamo, indie rock, alternative rock, ambient rock, one rock, two rock, red rock, blue rock, I was not completely prepared to analyze a CD that is none of that.

Max Cady

Max Cady released their first album, Tonight Alive, in 2004 and for the past two years have been playing shows in support of that work. Finally the guys have headed back to the studio for this second album, co-produced with Paul Williams, of which I was given a rough version. In our interview earlier this month, Justin Moore, Max Cady's lead singer, admitted that he's not sure when the album will be released, but that it's mostly complete. From the rough edit given to me to preview, I would say he's correct in assuming that. Listening to it, I cannot imagine what else the band would want to change.

Max Cady's brand of stripped down rock is back at its finest in this album. Most of the tracks are very drum heavy, by which I mean that they have a foreground presence, and are not merely a backdrop to the other instruments. They do not, however, sound overly complex, but are rather played with heavy hands and lots of cymbals which lend to this album's overall old-school rock feel. The vocals are a constant across most of the album, but this is not to mean that they get tired and typical. In sticking with the naked rock theme, Moore, while taking more chances overall in these tracks compared to the last album, sticks to his angry, every-syllable emphasis throughout.

As the band contends, you will find no ballads lodged anywhere within this album. You won't find uplifting music. You won't find that one song with a positive message. All you'll find is rock. With lyrics about revenge, chicks ("you're so fresh, hot, delicious;" well hopefully this is about girls and not donuts), and more than one tune detailing bullets and guns, the fast paced album harkens back to rock from another era. One can envision that kid laying on the floor of his room, feet up on the bed, big headphones on, listening to this album and looking through his parents' old records, plotting against the school bully. Then of course, I can only imagine the carnage and head banging in the pit when Moore repeatedly belts out "bullet in the gun" to a pulsating crowd of jean and black t-shirt clad young adults. Hell yeah.

Take this write-up as more of a preview than a review, given that the final copy of the album is not yet complete. I will, however, say this to end: In a time when rock is being mashed up with several other genres, sometimes well and other times disastrously, it's oddly refreshing to hear a stripped down, fast paced song about getting your bloody revenge. Put the therapist on speed dial.

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