Album Reviews

Album number nine for So-Cal stalwarts Pennywise doesn’t offer any surprises. Or it would have to be that they traded in longtime home Epitaph for MySpace Records (just for the States though, in Europe the album does come out on Eptaph). It might seem kind of funny that a socially conscious band like Pennywise with their ‘stick it to the man’ attitude ends up teaming up with Rupert Murdoch but once you get past that, “Reason To Believe” actually has a lot to offer.

That is, if you don’t expect anything new. These guys stick to what they know. An why wouldn’t they? They’ve got the formula down pat and we all know you shouldn’t change a winning team. They rage through 15 songs at breakneck speeds with Fletcher’s usual four-chords-are-all-you-need riffs, Jim’s usual rants against all the injustices in the world coupled to infectious hooks and lots of whoa-whoa singalong action.

So yeah, ‘nothing new’ are the keywords here but hey, “Reason To Believe” is still pretty enjoyable!