Album Reviews

- by Tom Dumarey

The godfathers of NYHC are back!

‘Wake The Sleeping Dragon!’ comes with a whopping 17 bangers that find the band doing… well, what they have always done. I mean, it’s Sick Of It All. You know the drill… pummeling drums, groove-laden basslines, simple yet highly effective riffage and Lou Koller venting his frustrations with his trademark bark.

Maybe the Dropkick Murphys-inspired singalong that is ‘Bull’s Anthem’ is not their best song to date. But there’s plenty of vintage Sick Of It All to get all warm and fuzzy about in songs like opener ‘Inner Vision’, ‘The Snake (Break Free)’, ‘To The Wolves’ and ‘Hardcore Horseshoe’.

And while they stay steadfast as ever musically, they broach a wide variety of subjects ranging from their musical heroes Bad Brains and narcissism displayed on social media to songs about life on the road and a song about mosh pit patterns that can be linked to male pattern baldness.

I honestly don’t know how they do it. ‘Scratch The Surface’ will forever remain my go-to SOIA album because that’s how I got to know them and I’m old enough to get all nostalgic about stuff like that. But they haven’t changed or slowed down and at this point in their career, I think it’s pretty much a given that a new Sick Of It All album will be a solid albeit unsurprising album.

Track listing:

1. Inner Vision         
2. That Crazy White Boy Shit         
3. The Snake (Break Free)         
4. Bulls Anthem         
5. Robert Moses Was A Racist         
6. Self Important Shithead         
7. To The Wolves         
8. Always With Us         
9. Wake The Sleeping Dragon         
10. 2+2         
11. Beef Between Vegans         
12. Hardcore Horseshoe         
13. Mental Furlough         
14. Deep State         
15. Bad Hombres         
16. Work The System         
17. The New Slavery