SEPTEMBER 2009 ONLINE EDITORIALS

10-4 Eleanor - …Too Bad

album cover

By Joshua Espinoza

Every now and then, a band comes along to re-teach the old punk rock lessons so many bands seem to forget: less is more and faster is better. Luckily for us, such lessons are readily available, thanks to the Fort Collins’ quartet 10-4 Eleanor.

The group’s sophomore release, …Too Bad, delivers a hefty dose of breakneck tempos and fist-pumping party anthems. Though definitely more dance than mosh, the 12-track album maintains a fitting degree of aggression that isn’t overshadowed by obvious powerpop influences.

The opening track, “Whispers in a Shot Glass,” begins with a steady, harmonized chant that emphasizes the band’s love for Colorado. Then, in typical punk rock fashion, the song tumbles into an up-tempo melody that is nothing short of dance-inducing. Sounding a lot like a soundtrack to a night filled with beer and misdemeanors, the 99-second track is an appropriate introduction to the following frenetic drum beats and toe-tapping refrains.

The album as a whole is fast, propulsive, catchy and dirty. The garage-punk ambiance is so thick you can practically touch the grimy coating on tracks like “Rebox Deetoks” and “Nothing Without Providence.” Even the album’s slower, lighter cuts, “Lonely Shoals” and “Too Epic fer Words,” are constructed with morsels of grit and intensity, thus proving 10-4 Eleanor to be a band of punk rock purists who don’t stray too far from the genre’s age-old formula.

It’s comforting to know punk’s spirit is still alive and thrashing.
www.myspace.com/104eleanor