Music In Review: Unwritten Law's Swan

Music In Review: Unwritten Law's Swan

Written by Paul Lyons

Monday, 04 April 2011 00:22

SoCal pop/punk rockers Unwritten Law are back with a brand new album, their first in six years...entitled SWAN.  Released on the Burbank independent label Suburban Noise Records, SWAN features eleven new tracks performed by guitarist Steve Morris, drummer Dylan Howard, bassist Pat Kim, and singer/guitarist Scott Russo.  The songs touch on themes of love, drugs, power, and the price of excessive hedonism. On the cover is a white background featuring the band’s name, with a dead fly laying on its back, flush right, just above the album’s title.  This unusual design was made by a fan named Raymond Brown...who won a “”Album Cover Design Contest” on Unwritten Law’s website last year.  Not sure what this particular artwork symbolizes, or if it symbolizes anything at all for that matter.  Yet in a way, it somehow works on its own terms... The collection opens up strong with the first single from SWAN: the catchy and bouncy “Starships &  Apocalypse.”  The song tells the story of a woman who likes to party like its her last day on Earth, and relishes the opportunity to escape from what waits for her tomorrow (if there is a tomorrow at all).  With a nod to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” Russo sings before every chorus “Ground control to Major Tom, and here comes the story so sing along yo...” “Nevermind” is another strong track, with a memorable pop melody and chorus.  The song tells of a man full of desire, yet completely incapable of getting what, or who he wants.  He shouts out explicitly in the chorus “I never get what I want when I want to.  I never do what I need when I need to.  I never say what I mean when I see you.”  Then he follows this with the sad resolve of “I guess you’re never gonna know, so never mind.”  Despite the heartbreaking failure expressed in the lyrics, you can’t help but bounce your head up and down and sing along. “Dark Dayz” has a punk/rockabilly feel to it.  The song is very uplifting, yet seems to allude to the highs and lows of drug use.  Russo sings “She’ll get you up, get you down, get you all around” and later belts out “I need a little more what you got for me.”  Though the drug in question could be anything from cocaine, to the love of a dark and dangerous  woman.  A similar tale is told in “Last Chance,” a pulsing, and danceable number that sounds like an interesting mixture of The Clash and Duran Duran.  The song tells of a man in love with a woman who “wrecks his world.”  His love for her is matched by her feeling that love “ain’t nothing but a word in a song.” Switching gears, “Sing” is a gentle acoustic number that grabs you with an infectious chorus of “Take me home.  Take me again and again.”  The message in this song is sweet and simple, with Russo singing about being deeply in love, and not feeling whole unless he is with the one he loves.  Perhaps to counter this, the next track on SWAN is a balls to the wall rocker called “Superbad.”  Featuring wailing Steve Morris guitar, the song sings about a bad boy with a ferocious appetite for power and rebellion.  He wants “the whole world wrapped around his middle finger.” “Let You Go” is another song about power.  The music has a mid-tempo march, and an army of a chorus reminiscent of something Mutt Lang used to create in the records he made with AC/DC and Def Leppard.  The lyrics tell of a man who wants to remind his lover who is boss, and lays down the law.  He wants her, yet only on his terms...singing “If you promise not to be a little thorn in my side, then every little thing is going top be alright” The next track is an amped up number called “Chicken (Ready to go).”  It features Del The Funky Homosapien on guest rap vocals that perfectly compliment Scott Russo’s melodic vocal styling.  “On My Own” comes next, a mid-tempo pop/dance song about having to come to terms with a relationship’s end. SWAN ends with a pair of songs that perfectly capture the conflicting themes of the album.  “Love Love Love” is a romantic love song...positive, gentle and sweet.  Yet the final track, “Swan Song,”  is a rocker that deals with the complexities of one’s mortality.  While the former sings about the the joys and pleasures of love, the later sings about death, and the desire for immortality. The sound of SWAN is not too far removed from Unwritten Law’s previous release, 2005’s HERE’S TO THE MOURNING.  It’s as if no time has passed between the two albums.  Like its predecessor, there is a big sonic texture to all of the songs.  In other words, all of the music feels large and loud...to the point where you feel as if the only appropriate venues to hear the songs are large festivals, sports arenas, and stadiums.  This is not a bad thing.  Yet if I were to have one criticism for SWAN, is that it is (like many records made in the 21st century) mixed too loud.  Steve Morris, Pat Kim, and Dylan Howard are all fine musicians...yet their playing often gets lost in the mix, and the sound loses its dynamic tension as a result.  That said, it’s great to have Unwritten Law back in the game again.  These new tracks will sound great on the Vans Warped Tour this summer.  Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another six years for their next release...