Are You Serious?
Dirtnap Records
5 Stars

For punk rock aficionados that feel there’s been a serious lack of good music in this genre of late, times may be changing. Although they don’t hail from New York City, The Mean Jeans are bringing that same gritty, punk sound made famous in clubs like CBGB’s back in the day. Their songs are fast, aggressive, sometimes silly and all have a devil-may-care attitude. Are You Serious? is a fast romp through the occasionally warped minds of The Mean Jeans, but as much as it looks back to earlier punk bands, they manage to look forward at the same time. Who needs deep, sappy emotion when you can get fired up and want to kick some ass?

Although the album is a mere 25 minutes long, each track packs a punch (and some manage to do it in less than a minute). Sure, the songs aren’t exactly plumbing the depths of emotion or experience, but that isn’t what punk is about. “Born On A Saturday Night” is a prime example of how raw and fun good punk can be. Vocalists Jeans Wilder and Billy Jeans spit out lyrics with venom and the song has huge energy. “Steve Don’t Party No More” maintains the same feel with a breakneck pace and a definite nod to influences like the Ramones.

“Party Animal” manages to combine aggression and, oddly enough, fun and is easy to see why it would be an entertaining song to hear live. There’s some good guitar work halfway through the track that adds a little bit more of a rock and roll feel to the predominantly punk song. “Outta Smokes” is one of the sillier tracks on the album and is, obviously, referencing the distress of realizing there aren’t any more cigarettes around. The song also wins for being the shortest at only 52 seconds, but then again, once you get past the initial agony of running out of cigarettes, there isn’t much more to say about the situation.

“Throwin Stones” is another example proving the band can write some relatively complex punk tracks. Sure, that classic sound is present, but there’s more to it than just that; this isn’t just crashing chords and a bit of yelling. The track has a bit of a bluesy feel as well as pulling in some sounds and musical phrases that could be right out of a late 1950s rock song. The album wraps up with “Let’s Pogo B4 U Gogo,” which manages to whimsically poke a little fun at the stereotypes of the punk genre while still being a good track. You can almost hear Wilder’s sneer and attitude as he drawls out the lyrics.

Punk may be a bit past its time, but The Mean Jeans prove that this genre isn’t dead and gone. In fact, with albums as good as this one, it might just be time for a real punk revival, not just the over-produced and sanitized pop-punk that has taken over. – EVELYN MISKA

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