On their latest album, Bass Drum Of Death have taken their sound out of the garage and gave it a nice polish. Other than the better production job, not a lot has changed on “Rip This” when compared against last year’s self-titled album.

The ten new tracks still reek of 70s rock (or is that just patchouli?) and range from punky and in-your-face (“Burns My Eye”) to MC5-ish (“Black Don’t Glow”). It’s not the kind of album that will turn your whole world upside down, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is a lot of fun to listen to. John Barrett has always been good at coupling energy to hooks and that’s no different on “Rip This”. When they do try something a little more mellow, like on the acoustic “Better Days”, they succeed just the same. Most of the time though, they love making a lot of noise with the amps cranked up to 10.