Rancid

Here's the new face of rock & roll!" announces Lars Frederiksen eight songs into Rancid's
latest album. It's unclear whether he's being optimistic or facetious: More than anything
else, Life Won't Wait evokes the Clash's Sandinista! – but for all the right reasons. It's an
exhilarating punk-rock record, one that delves into ska, blues and reggae. In mimicking the
Clash circa 1980, Rancid have found the perfect template for growing up as a pu... More >

With punk revivalism deemed almost as uncouth as frat-boy ska in these postalt times, the three-year hiatus since . . . And Out Come the Wolves may have flattened the rep of one of the few bands to get either style right. That's how pop works--you work your claim, times change, you lose. But art is more forgiving, and aesthetically, this beaty disc is an improvement--snakier in the bass and loopier in the vocals, careening forward in a lovely confusion that never approaches thrash or march (well, maybe march). Whatever their ideas about black lung, glass-pipe murder, baseball bats in Poland, liberty failed liberty, and love redeeming love, they make you glad they have feelings about them--and convinced that for once you know the difference between feeling and pose. (Grade: A-)