THE BARBARIANS OF CALIFORNIA

THE BARBARIANS OF CALIFORNIA     “Megatons”

By Dr. Abner Mality

I went outside my comfort zone with this one and gotta say, the result is much more entertaining than I thought it would be. THE BARBARIANS OF CALIFORNIA are described as “West Coast hardcore” but there’s more to them than that. I always preferred the street-tough NYHC to the poppier Orange County stuff, but these guys are a trip. Yes, there’s some of that catchy WCHC punk in “Megatons” but they toss in a lot of other influences. Not to mention that this record can be as heavy as the title indicates.

This is good goofy fun and not to be taken super seriously. They don’t have an “image” so at least we don’t get another cosplay band. These guys mix catchy, almost poppy punk rock hooks with downtuned super-heavy riffs and breakdowns and the whackiness of early 90’s noise rock. The riffing is almost ridiculously simple and incredibly effective. On top of that are the snotty tongue in cheek vocals of Aaron Bruno, also of AWOLNATION, whose vocal lines often sound like singsong nursery rhymes. Song titles like “Vanilla Latte”, “Really Really Rad” and “I Am The Submarine” tell you not to expect anything too deep here…they are boatloads of stupid, actually, but somehow it works.

So we got a mix of pop punk, crushing hardcore and whacko noise rock, combined with dumb lyrics and the occasional surprise, like synthrock or the acoustic “Shark Out Of Water”. One thing that really surprised me is sometimes it almost sounds expansive and cinematic. But then those ten ton breakdowns hit in the next few seconds. Somehow it all works and I was really entertained throughout the whole record. Best and heaviest tracks are “Bomb To A Knife Fight”, which could flatten an apartment block, and “Earthquake”, which kind of puts all of THE BARBARIANS’ traits together in one package.

Sometimes it’s good to step outside the box. I could see big things in the future for THE BARBARIANS OF CALIFORNIA., silly or no!

THE BARBARIANS OF CALIFORNIA