The Briggs - Come All You Madmen

Genre punk rock Publisher Side One Dummy Records External Links The Briggs Website The Briggs MySpace

Following up to their 2006 album Back to Higher Ground, The Briggs' newest, Come All You Madmen, is a rather entertaining, although far from groundbreaking, street punk romp. Trying to throw back to the days of Cock Sparrer, the Angelic Upstarts and Sham 69, The Briggs somewhat miss their mark in even recalling bands like The Ducky Boys or Oxymoron.

Street punk should be, by definition, pretty gritty. Working class bands, boots and denim, all that jazz. While fairly well played, and with an almost cockney accent, The Briggs sound sorta like a street punk band, just one that hasn't needed to work a steady job in a long time. Everything is well played, Jason and Joey LaRocca have decent voices for the style, it just isn't groundbreaking.

There are a handful of moments on the album when it seems like there could be another side to The Briggs. A bit angrier, a bit less cuddly, and decidedly less radio friendly. Tracks like "Charge Into the Sun" and "Ship of Fools" show that The Briggs might have a bit of upstart in them after all.

All of the instrumentation is fairly solid, nothing is played poorly, this album just doesn't come off as that interesting. They are, however, at home on Side One Dummy Records, with bands like Flogging Molly. The Briggs share much more in common with Flogging Molly (and, to a lesser degree, The Pogues as much as it saddens me) than the working class punks that started the movement.

Songs like "Final Words" sound more like old Good Riddance, or even Alkaline Trio, with little melodic sing-a-long parts, than any street punk that's ever been around. Having production by Duane Peters (Singer of US Bombs and the only singer I've ever seen to pass out on stage drunk only to have a guitarist kick him awake) on former albums (Numbers, specifically) should give a bit of credibility. I mean, these kids have been around forever. They don't exactly look…well…working class, but still, at least they've been around the block.

This album just lacks grit of any kind. It's all shiny polished music that can almost blend in. The vocals are a plus, but the lyrics seem rather bland and washed out. It just sounds sorta like suburban street punk, seemingly an oxymoron.

It's not bad music, just somewhat uninspired. It doesn't really feel like a street punk album. I guess the problem could be that mostly all punk currently is a shiny, happy, clean version of what it was twenty, even five or ten, years ago, it's just a shame to see what was essentially the NASCAR of punk get watered down with the rest of the scene. If you're new to this genre, educate yourself on some older music while listening to this. It's enjoyable for that, at least. Or as a drinking song at that not-quite-dive-sort-of-yuppie bar that you and all your college friends go to with your suspenders and Docs.