Wait, didn’t I just write about Dan Vapid & The Cheats? I had to look it up and it was only ten months ago we covered Escape Velocity. It feels even more recent. Well, here’s Welcome To Dystopia, album #5 by pop punk and ramonescore legend Dan Vapid (Screeching Weasel, The Riverdales, The Mopes, The Methadones, The Vindictives). I liked Escape Velocity a lot, but Welcome To Dystopia may be even better.
Welcome To Dystopia is an album of contradictions. It sounds super smooth but its themes touch upon the rough direction society is taking. Sweet and sour, light and dark, it’s all there on the record. It’s political but communicated through personal experience, frustrations and anger. Dan Vapid uses that fuel to create something that sounds anthemic and joyful at the same time. What better way to deal with that hateful narcissistic populist leader than by shouting along to Big Boy Is Crying Again. What better way to sing away your frustration about friends and family lost to conspiracy theorists than with Fact Or Fiction?
Can a record about such negative themes that are all too familiar still be fun? Leave that in Dan Vapid’s capable hands. This is pop punk bliss. Out now on CD through Eccentric Pop Records, LP expected eventually.
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