The Bronx are a loud rock-n-roll band. Their first album was bruising and hectic, but their second album toned it down a tad with more melody and relaxing tempos. More than one coked-up kid probably complained of the change, slight as it was, and cried sellout. "Where'd all the punk go?" Well kid, now that The Bronx are free from major label restrictions and doing everything on their own White Drugs imprint, they have given us their third full-length titled The Bronx, where it's assumed that they'll be able to really let loose and get abrasive again.
A band can be as abrasive as a cheese grater to the forehead, but it won't matter if the songs aren't quite all there. That is the main issue with III (yeah, I know it's supposed to be The Bronx, but they can't expect to break all the rules and get away with it). For every song that cooks hard, the next one brings the heat back down to lukewarm. They have certainly taken off the sheen of II and replaced it with a rougher edge, guitars more up front and drums getting their "clang" back. And Matt Caughthran hasn't lost any of his vocal ferocity, shredding his throat while still managing to actually sing. It's a talent that very few people have, and The Bronx is lucky to have a singer that can be aggressive as they give listeners a tune to hum.
As strange as it was to hear cleanly sung rock songs like "Dirty Leaves" on II, it can be argued that those were among the best songs The Bronx has written. Without any real melodic variation like that, the game has to be stepped up so that the harder songs are more memorable. And that just does not happen on III. "Past Lives" gets your toe tapping a little but makes no real impact, same goes for "Pleasure Seekers," another plodder that shows some promise but never gets off the ground. "Six Days a Week" starts off with a riff far too reminiscent of II's "Mouth Money," and then goes into a chorus that almost brings the hot boogie riff, but once again, doesn't. So many of the guitar riffs on this album do that. And with the addition of a second guitarist, a sign that should mean interplay galore, Ken Horne is criminally underused, to the point where I doubt most people would even notice that there's another guy playing.
It would be unfair to dismiss III because it's by no means a bad effort. The Bronx still have an ear for rough punk rock and don't seem to have any intention of changing what they do. But where I once would have ranked them as one of the top rock-n-roll bands in recent memory, they have fallen a few notches in that ranking. Not that they care what I think about them. They probably shouldn't. But they might reconsider their approach to a genre that can get mighty stale without a whole lot of oomph in the songwriting department.
