ALBUM REVIEW: Ronin – Rotting Out

California hardcore wrecking crew ROTTING OUT’s new album Ronin is their first release since their sudden break-up in 2015 and subsequent reuniting for Sound And Fury Festival in 2018. The album is pure punk in your face noise, dumping the listener in the deep end straight from opener Vessel. Their traditional punk roots are worn on their sleeve throughout this album, with BLACK FLAG-esque fast-paced tempos replacing the more contemporary hardcore technique of relying on massive beatdowns. Instead this is an album that never lets up, from the aforementioned opener all the way to album closer Boy it is a relentless onslaught, barely giving you time to breathe in between songs.

Following vocalist Walter Delgado’s 2016 arrest and subsequent imprisonment for transporting 700 pounds of cannabis some critics could have expected the band to calm down perhaps, but instead they cultivate the upbeat nature of their music that the press release claims makes them “the band that every party kid with a skateboard will love for decades regardless of creed or culture.” Being from South Bay in California has also clearly influenced their music and love for skater culture, quoting local icons SUICIDAL TENDENCIES and PENNYWISE as further inspirations – both bands themselves that have been party favourites of skater kids in the past.

While this album doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it is consistently good throughout, and the songs do sometimes sound a bit too similar to each other but it is easy to ignore when they are just this much fun to listen to. Punk this most certainly is, but it is less easy to define it as hardcore, as the few breakdowns there actually are barely count as breakdowns within the context of modern day hardcore – which is not a negative on ROTTING OUT’s part, but rather an observation of how far modern hardcore has moved from the original hardcore punk bands that the South Bay band take the majority of their influence from.

Indeed there has been a trend lately of younger modern bands making music that wouldn’t sound out of place in the late 20th century, and if this had been a release straight out of California in the 90s it would be heralded as breaking boundaries and genre expanding. To give credit to ROTTING OUT they certainly make the style their own, with Delgado’s unique vocals adding an extra layer of something unique, while Thief ends with one of the few breakdowns on the album and is clearly written to be a highlight of their live shows. The band undoubtedly do this retro-inspired style with their own spin on it, and do it a hell of a lot better than other contemporary bands who try to emulate their heroes, such as GRETA VAN FLEET’s pure LED ZEPPELIN rip-offs.

If you’ve been looking for a band who encapsulate punk and skater culture, while bringing punk into the modern era then look no further. ROTTING OUT do all of that and more on Ronin, which is simply so much fun to listen to. While the lyrics can take a dark turn at times – especially on epic five minute long album closer Boy which delves into Delgado’s childhood – the vast majority of this album brings to mind a late night chilling in a skate park, listening to bands like BLACK FLAG and PENNYWISE, albeit with far better production than any of those bands’ earlier efforts. As mentioned before this album doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does something pretty damn good with it, sitting on that tenuous boundary between punk and hardcore.

Rating: 7/10

Ronin is out now via Pure Noise Records. 

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