Album Reviews

Black Wine is a punkrock trio from New Brunswick, New Jersey whose members have previously played in The Ergs, Full Of Fancy and Hunchback. None of the songs on “Yell Boss” sound like The Ergs though. Whether they sound like the other two bands is still up in the air because to be honest, I’ve never heard of them before.

Anyway, “Yell Boss” is already the band’s fourth album and it comes with ten songs that all fit together nicely even if there are plenty of differences between them. For one thing, all three of the band members sing. Another reason is that all three of them write. It makes for a pretty varied album that ranges from indie rock to punk to loud rawk. ‘No core’ is what the band calls it and that sums it up nicely.

Whether you’re talking about frenetic opener “Komrades”, the rocking “Solar Flare”, the drawn out “Rime” (the band’s take on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) or the cover of the Guess Who’s “No Time”, it all makes sense. Can I use a metaphor here? Sure I can, it’s my site. “Yell Boss” is like a week in your life where not a single day is the same as the one before but come Sunday evening, you look back and go ‘damn, that was a good week’. Okay, so maybe metaphors aren’t my strong suit but “Yell Boss” is still a solid album.