Album Reviews

- by Tom Dumarey

Remember Sicko, a pop-punk band from Seattle living it up in the mid 90s? Well, neither do I. But count on Red Scare to rectify that injustice through the release of ‘In The Alternate Timeline,’ a collection/anthology that upon listening to, immediately raises the question why these guys weren’t as popular as some of their contemporaries.

Hand-picked by the band and completely remastered, these 19 songs come with the same amount of fun and energy that I vaguely remember from a time before my day job and life in general got the best of me. Which happen to be themes that regularly make an appearance in Sicko songs.

If there was such a thing as a big punk rock family tree, these guys would be closer related to the likes of MTX, Jawbreaker and J-Church than say, Pennywise. Which makes for some badass songs like opener ‘Where I Live’, ‘Believe’, ‘Farm Song’ and ‘Wisdom Tooth Weekend’.

Which brings us to the question of why release this now?

“Well, basically for the same reason as ever: it’s (nothing more than) something fun to do. Now that our kids are the ones running through the sprinklers, and there isn’t a single dateless loser left among us, we thought we’d get back into rock while we still can. The album title refers to an alternate universe in which things turned out differently, and we actually got successful. Yeah, RIGHT. We’re talking alternate timelines, not science fiction! Might as well include a flying battleship with a Wave Motion Gun as well… Truthfully, we just wanted to get together and have some fun with old friends”.

Track listing:

1. Where I Live
2. FB Song
3. 80 Dollars
4. Bad Year
5. A Song About A Rabbit
6. Little
7. Believe
8. The Sprinkler
9. Wave Motion Gun
10. Farm Song
11. On The Clock
12. Me And Carl
13. Kathy's Dance
14. Rehashed
15. Wisdom Tooth Weekend
16. High Hopes
17. An Indie Rock Daydream
18. Cover Up
19. Washington My Home