Time Bomb (2017)

I don't keep careful track of such things, but surely the 39 years that passed between the first album by the Suicide Commandos and this second one must be some statistical record. Even Paul McCartney and Santana came up short of 30 years between top 10 hits ("Spies Like Us" and "FourFive Seconds" for the one and "Black Magic Woman" and "Smooth" for the other). At this point I know it's mandatory to mention whether it was worth the wait, but as far as I'm concerned, like the 2015 This Is the Sonics, I'm just happy they did it—"rage against the dying of the light," you know. The fact that Time Bomb is a pretty good album is a bonus. The Suicide Commandos, the Minneapolis mid-'70s punk-rock standard-bearers (accept no substitutes), were matched in 1978 with Cleveland's finest, Pere Ubu, on the Mercury subsidiary label Blank (not to be confused with Glenn Danzig's original Misfits project). That first Commandos album, Make a Record, was released simultaneously with Pere Ubu's first, The Modern Dance. Pere Ubu went on to the more illustrious career, and the truth is in 1978 the Commandos were close to calling it quits for almost two decades. Make a Record was a pretty good album too—packed with great, classic songs from their set list—but it was unfortunately dogged by a poor recording. That problem has certainly been addressed on Time Bomb, which is as explosive as the title suggests, crackling with energy, power, and clarity. A more nebulous problem has also been fixed: the three principals—drummer Dave Ahl, bassist Steve Almaas, and guitarist Chris Osgood—seem to like each other more than they did in 1978. The humor is still intact too, based on misspent youth watching trashy movies and playing Monkees records, and they generally rock the house with authority all night from track to track.

If the album consists mostly of solo songwriting credits, the attack of the band is as sharp as ever, updated to beyond middle age, for a seamless batch that's nice to play a lot. And there are a couple of formal collaborations, including one of the best songs here, "If I Can't Make You Love Me," with a monster riff straight from the '70s (is that Bad Company? Thin Lizzy? Aerosmith? I know I should know it) and garbled adolescent sentiments ("you're an idiot, shitty-it, itty-bitty fitty-it," innit?). All my favorites have big riffs and hark to classic-rock or even, dare I say it, boogie. If I had to pick a single favorite it would probably be Osgood's "Pool Palace Cigar," a devil's riff by way of ZZ Top paired with a narrative about traveling through small towns trying to act cool and getting drunk—perfect. His "Boogie's Coldest Acre" is another good one, complete with a classic Osgood riff. This time the boogie mainly exists in the title. The song appears to be about a dangerous situation that needs to be defused. It comes in versions with and without swearing—"put that thing down" versus "put that fucking thing down"—and for some reason (maybe because I'm 39 years older now too) I like the one without swearing more. "Cocktail Shaker" is by Ahl and works more swampy boogie rhythms, with a sinuous guitar line and a way of moving, stopping, and starting that is propulsive. "Depth charge rock" I wrote in a note. All together: "Shake!" Ahl likes his trash culture and Osgood tended to favor the story song, whereas Almaas (full disclosure, a high school friend) has long seemed more rooted in the Buddy Holly / Beatles / Byrds schools of country-inflected pop. A few of his songs here—notably "Try Again," "For Such a Mean Time" (Byrds strained through Cyril Jordan Flamin' Groovies), and "The Wrong Time"—tend to be the ones that make me happiest coming back to the album regularly. His "When I Do It, It's OK" comes out of the same high-velocity kick as the Beatles' "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and other '50s covers. Time Bomb: Play loud. All of it.