Life Won't Wait - Rancid

...So, the group's fourth LP, Life Won't Wait hit the shelves in 1998, and while it probably did very well in terms of initial sales, it did suffer a bit of a backlash from bitter fans who didn't hear those three chords played over and over enough times. Nowadays it's the record anyone rarely talks about, with it's follow up, Rancid (2000) basically taking all the heat off of it by dividing the fans even further. To be honest, it probably suits my musical ...
...the drummer nobody cares about, Life Won't Wait would not only see the band dabble with various musical styles, but also feature guest stars, most notably reggae star Buju Banton, whom the group also worked with on one of his records. I believe it was also the first album put out on Tim Armstrong's Hellcat Records label, which specialise in bringing out CDs in annoying cardboard sleeves instead of Jewel cases.

Starting out with a ... more

After their third album, ...And Out Come The Wolves became a huge success, the members of Rancid were faced with a pretty unique dilemma about how to follow up this hugely successful record. Despite the fact that it was mostly dull, and repetitive as all hell, ...And Out Come The Wolves was a huge seller, shifting millions of copies and putting Rancid right up there with such purveyors of 'music' as Green Day and The Offspring. So how do you follow a record such as that? Rancid had never really faced the battle agains 'The Sophomore Slump', basically because nobody cared about their debut album. Yet, now they were trendy, and couldn't risk alienating all of those fans of theirs.

While it's a known fact I rate Rancid roughly about as highly as I do Australia's chances of winning the next World Cup, I have to take my hat off to them. Instead of releasing ...And Out Come The Wolves all over again, or pulling a Green Day, by trying to go 'edgy', Rancid decided to try their hands at proper experimentation. It's a fact that the band are fans of the Clash, and probably taking note of what they had done with their epic masterpiece Sandinista!, Rancid decided to go almost all out reggae and funk sounding, mixing it in with their pop-punk guitars.

Granted the songs the album they came away with wasn't very good, but I still think they deserve credit for at least trying something different. Needless to say the record divided most listeners, half of them declaring "that's not punk", and the other half, who are more gullible than U2 fans, declared it a masterpiece.

It's been a good number of years since I got my hands on this record, and I have to admit, that even in my mid-teen fascination with rubbish neo-punk music, I could never truly get into it. I wouldn't have said I disliked the record, but I certainly couldn't listen to it from start to finish, and it was probably the least played of all my Rancid records. Odd then, that now, the 20 year old me finds it probably Rancid's most palletable record I've heard(I don't, and probably won't ever own the group's debut or Indestructable), granted that doesn't say all that much.

So, the group's fourth LP, Life Won't Wait hit the shelves in 1998, and while it probably did very well in terms of initial sales, it did suffer a bit of a backlash from bitter fans who didn't hear those three chords played over and over enough times. Nowadays it's the record anyone rarely talks about, with it's follow up, Rancid (2000) basically taking all the heat off of it by dividing the fans even further. To be honest, it probably suits my musical intake these days more than it did what I was listening to when I bought it. Ska and Reggae take up quite a bit of space on my ipod, be it from Jamaicans like Lee 'Scratch' Perry, or by revivalists like The Specials or Madness, Ska and Reggae hits my ears a whole lot more often these days than it did when I was 15.

Still comprising of the same 4 members who played on ...And Out Come The Wolves, guitarist and lead slurrer Tim Armstrong, guitarist and singer Lars Frederikson, Bassist Matt Freeman and the drummer nobody cares about, Life Won't Wait would not only see the band dabble with various musical styles, but also feature guest stars, most notably reggae star Buju Banton, whom the group also worked with on one of his records. I believe it was also the first album put out on Tim Armstrong's Hellcat Records label, which specialise in bringing out CDs in annoying cardboard sleeves instead of Jewel cases.

Starting out with a pompous introduction, the first real song of the record, Bloodclot would probably give you the impression that this is the same old Rancid would farted their way through the previous albums. Fast guitars, heavy bassline and constant "HEY" chants comprise the meat of the song, which is basically Rancid-by-the-numbers, but it was a pretty well thought way to start the album for fans of the group's previous works. You see, while this record is often declared "NOT PUNK!!!11!", it does feature a good few songs performed in the standard Rancid vein. Ironically, some of them are actually the band's best work in this field, like Leicester Square, a very catchy track sung by Lars backed by some handclaps. While in theory it's once again textbook Rancid, it's just a whole lot more catchy and well, good, than most of the pop-punk tracks the band churns out. Sadly, Rancid display a habit of half-writing songs. Black Lung features an awesome opening riff, but quickly fades into obscurity as just another Rancid track that sounds the same. The band are really quite infuriating when it comes to doing this, they often seem to write a good riff or bassline, then just throw the other aspects of the song together, seemingly as quickly as possible.
Sticking with the 'classic' sounding Rancid tracks, Lady Liberty, Cash, Culture and Violence,Warsaw and The Wolf are tracks that I find incredibly boring, but if you are a fan of Rancid's earlier albums, chances are you will like them.

As you will no doubt have gathered, Life Won't Wait does feature numerous reggae/ska influences numbers, and while I will applaud them for trying their hand at something different, it doesn't exactly work all that well. The title track has a nice drum-beat and organ sound going on, Coppers' calypso drums add a nice flavour to the anti-violence sing-a-long that's probably up there as one of Rancid's better tracks and Corason De Oro is a heartfelt love-song that actually works quite well.

Most of the other tracks just fall into a sort of 'what the hell?' category that fans of Rancid will no doubt curse for their inventiveness, and everyone else will just not want to hear due to the nature of it as a half-baked reggae/ska/dub number played by a pop-punk band.

What the hell 1998 is all about I don't know, it's oddly paced, lacks any form of catchy hook, and features some sort of ridiculous lyrics about "Sidney, Sidney/ in the USA!", naturally the Sidney referenced is Sid Vicious, and the cover features a blurred chap who I think is supposed to evoke thoughts of John Lydon, but the song is basically crap, an un-memorable music track with god-awful lyrics, most notably the line same fuckin shit 1998" where the band clearly didn't notice the 'swearing = cool' trend of the early 1990s was fading.

I don't know what the hell you would call Crane Fist, starting with some kind of sample, and consisting mainly of a bassline, the song also lacks any hook, or any appeal full stop. Who Would've Thought tries to milk the ballad appeal that Corason de Oro does so much better, and the rest of the songs are either outstandingly bad pop-punk numbers, or brain-numbingly boring attempts at reggae tracks.

With all of this negativity flying around, I've actually forgot my point here, which was actually to illustrate that this record wasn't a complete disaster. It's not by the way, and it's probably Rancid's best record, on the grounds that it has songs that actually work. Songs like Leicester Square, Corason de Oro, Coppers and the title track see to it that this album does scrape 3/5 from me, but given how much disposable nonsense the record does feature, it is quite lucky.

On the simple grounds that it isn't a consistantly good album, I'm not going to recommend the record either, however, what I will say for it, is that if you are looking for a Rancid album, and cannot be dissuaded from buying one, I would make it this. The band potter around and fanny about with so many sounds on this record, that it's natural that they would finally get some songs right, and if you are looking to take any quality out of the band, chances are it will be found on this album 

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