Face to Face Create an Absolutely Perfect Punk Rock Album and Prove Great Music Can Be Made for Over 50 Punk Rockers
5.0 out of 5 stars
Face to Face’s new album No Way Out But Through is, in my opinion, the band’s best album since Big Choice which came out back in 1995.
That’s not to say that they have made bad music in between. Far from it, actually.
These SoCal rockers have been making excellent music for 30 years now, and this album just absolutely rips the whole way through.
Starting off with the song “Black Eye Specialist,” the band quickly demonstrates that they didn’t make this record to just crank out a few more songs. They came to throw down and rock the shit out of these songs.
The staccato of the guitars in the verse is a bit of a Face to Face signature that just makes a really cool sound and harkens the consistency of the band’s iconic punk sound. A few vocal harmonies also make sure to keep the sound familiar to previous works.
The title track “No Way Out But Through” is a classic Face to Face song as well. Anthemic, heavy handed on the drums and the chanting backup vocals and the “whoa oh ohs” in the chorus are just so damn awesome you can’t help but start banging your head.
A standout song on the album is probably “Blanked Out” which REALLY brings me back to the early Face to Face days by drawing on an early sound via the guitar riff, but bringing it up to date with the singing and lyrics.
The last two songs provide a bit of a subtle hint that Face to Face may be considering hanging up their spurs at some point in the future.
“This is My Vanishing Act” and “Farewell Song” lead you to believe that there is some hidden meaning behind those titles. Though the songs have no direct mention of quitting or not having fun making music or anything, the titles put together give you that feeling that this could be close to the end for the punk rock icons.
“This is My Vanishing Act” does give you that feeling that there is some hesitancy in the rock and roll lifestyle going forward though as it uses live performance references as the analogy for the regretful emotions the song is about.
Anything that Face to Face does musically is always worth a listen, and this album is one that should be highly considered as one of their bests.