In celebration of Stereo Transmitted Disease's official debut of their album "Generation Nothing," please check out my review, which was part of my semi-regular Maxboxing.com column back on September 22, 2010. It was my way of saying thank you for the advance copy I received and also served as a way to curb my frustration over the previous weekend's Shane Mosley vs. Sergio Mora fight. So if you haven't picked it up on iTunes (http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/generation-nothing/id424290231?ign-mpt=uo%3D4) or at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_26?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music&field-keywords=stereo+transmitted+disease&sprefix=stereo+transmitted+disease) yet, please check out my review excerpt and buy that sucker! You won't be disappointed!
When I first encountered Chris Casso, I found a very cool Max-Fan who’s been stuck-on-stupid for boxing for years. An amateur fighter as a pup, Chris suffered an accident which KO’ed him for awhile, even putting him in a coma for a stretch. What I didn’t know when he first started following Maxboxing on Facebook was that Chris is a very talented musician and frontman for the hard rock group Stereo Transmitted Disease. Recently, as a nice little motivation for a potential merchandising design for the band, Chris sent me a copy of their debut album and I thought it would be nice to share my thoughts on the slab with you fine readers. At the very least, it’ll be a pleasant palate cleanser to the anathema which was Mosley-Mora.
The first track on the album, “Generation Nothing,” is as heavy and anthemic as you like it. It’s strategically the perfect way draw you in to an absolute ocean of sound that you won’t mind drowning in. Yes, it’s one of those songs you have to test your car stereo with and harkens back to the days of Shotgun Messiah’s (remember them?) pulse-pounding “Heartbreak Boulevard” but lays out how our present-day youth have little identity to speak of. Lyrics like “They say the revolution starts inside your head. John Lennon did it all and he never left his bed” and “If ‘Stairway to Heaven’ was a new song today, they’d chop it into pieces for the radio play” are part of a clever assemblage of historical relevance vs. modern-day apathy. Fans of Filter and their lead singer Richard Patrick will seriously dig the sonic “A Place Called Home” as Casso vocal range knows no bounds. “You Got Fingered” (minds outta the gutter, you guys) opens with a mood-setting Zeppelin-esque drum opening (think “Moby Dick” done up sweet by drummer Tom Walling) that John Bonham would’ve been proud of. Before you know it, the song explodes into another car-crankable tune (complete with a screaming guitar lead-in) Velvet Revolver might wish they wrote. “She’s Made of Gold” features deep swagger and tight gang vocals with a fantastic female R&B backing vocal (and I apologize for not knowing who supplies it. It was a perfect garnish) to bring it all home. “Medicated Children of America” has that better-than-Velvet Revolver feel and touches on our youth being doped-up and dumbed-down and “Doin’ Time” is a rollicking mesh of what made groups like Hanoi Rocks and Iggy and the Stooges so much fun. Look, don’t take my assessment of STD’s effort as a copycat collection based on my comparisons. In fact, it’s a commentary of just a few of the band’s influences, subconscious or not, that they have no problem outdoing at their own games. As I’ve mentioned Casso and Walling already, I’d be remiss in leaving out the vicious dual guitar attack of Dave Lenat and Mike Thatcher and the sneaky-yet-silky thump of bassist Kjell Benner. These guys are elements in this “disease” that you might not wanna get a vaccination for. Go check ‘em out and be a fan at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Stereo-Transmitted-Disease/85475048430?ref=ts or visit them at www.stdtheband.com.
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