Rancid
Let the Dominoes Fall (Epitaph)

Timothy Lockwood Armstrong might just be the most fascinating maverick in the spiky, dyed, and dirty history of punk rock. Rancid’s famously marble-mouthed singer-guitarist is definitely a man of contradictions, which, despite what the staff at Maximum RocknRoll will argue, is a hell of a lot more admirable than kowtowing to the dogmatists.

Most fascinating is that, even though Armstrong’s various musical endeavours have probably made him filthy stinking rich, he still looks like an unwashed, older version of the Mohawks who make Granville Mall their unofficial crash pad. At the age of 43, he’s keeping it every bit as real as the crusties at 924 Gilman Street. And better yet, he’s doing it on his own terms.

Need proof? Well, then, consider that, as much as he’s made a career out of bucking the system with Rancid, he’s had no problem swimming in the mainstream, collaborating with the chart-topping likes of Gwen Stefani and Pink. He has no compunction about cheating on his bandmates—most famously with the Transplants, a hip-hop–flavoured supergroup that includes Blink-182 skin-basher Travis Barker. And he doesn’t give a shit about obeying whatever rules punk rockers are supposed to follow. If he did, you wouldn’t be hearing the Transplants’ “Diamonds and Guns” in the background every time a Garnier Fructis shampoo commercial pops up on the idiot box.

Armstrong does whatever the fuck he likes. And it’s that fuck-the-world spirit that helps make Rancid’s new album, Let the Dominoes Fall, the most ambitious of the long-running Berkeley quartet’s career.

Anyone can play old-fashioned punk rock, and Christ knows that Armstrong, guitarist-singer Lars Frederiksen, and bassist Matt Freeman have more than earned their stripes on that front. But the great bands are the ones that have the balls to mix things up, even it means taking a few lumps from the faithful.

Let the Dominoes Fall is the sound of a group that, more than ever before, isn’t afraid to step outside the box. Fifteen years ago, back when Armstrong was slurring his words through street-punk anthems like “Side Kick”, who would have ever thought Rancid would end up throwing a string section into the mix, which it does here?

Fittingly, it’s Let the Dominoes Fall’s most radical departure that ends up hijacking the show. A hushed take on alt-country burnished with desert-sunset mandolin, “Civilian Ways” might be the most un-Rancid song that Armstrong and company have ever recorded. Basically, it’s a love letter from the singer to his brother, an Iraq war veteran who returned to America to find everything has changed. “Civilian Ways” is also an acknowledgment that, as much as we’re all against a war that no one but Dick Cheney and the oil companies wanted, the biggest casualties are sometimes the everyday Joes on the front lines. The result is devastating right from the top, when, over a clip-clop beat and acoustic guitars, a whiskey-throated Armstrong drawls “I hold the cold steel of my rifle as I dream of foreign lands/And I promise myself I will cherish every moment I can.” If Joe Strummer was still alive, “Civilian Ways” would be getting massive play around the campfire, and there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the circle.

The surprises don’t stop there, with Rancid breaking out the harmonica for the plaintive-folk comedown “The Highway”, tipping the hat to the ’70s Stones on “Skull City”, and totally nailing Kingston-brand dub on the reverb-drenched “I Ain’t Worried”.

Those who’ll argue that punk rock should never aim higher than four chords and a singer who sounds like he’s been sucking on Novocaine gum balls won’t go home disappointed. There’s a full metal jacket’s worth of mosh-pit detonators here, from the nitro-loaded hardcore of “L.A. River” to the Warped-speed thrasher “The Bravest Kids”. Kudos to Freeman for once again proving that he’s one of the most accomplished bassists in showbiz—punk rock or otherwise—and to new drummer Branden Steineckert for turning in a clinic that, more often than not, seems almost impossibly inhuman.

Rancid’s love for vintage Jamaican ska surfaces once again in “Up to No Good” and “Liberty and Freedom”; despite what we’ve been taught by Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish, and Save Ferris, it’s okay for white people to tackle the classic rocksteady sound, especially when it’s done brilliantly enough to impress the founders of Studio One. That, of course, is high praise, but on Let the Dominoes Fall, Rancid earns it. Hell, most of the album even finds Armstrong singing, as opposed to slurring like a wino after three bottles of Thunderbird, a 40-ouncer of Colt 45, and a half-dozen roofies.

Either all those speech-therapy sessions finally paid off, or the American underground is proof that an old punker can learn new tricks. Let’s go with the latter, if only because you just know that Timothy Lockwood Armstrong, as punk rock’s reigning maverick, has no interest in giving people what they want.

Download This: “Civilian Ways”