CD Reviews

The New Alibis | Hard Promises

Teenage Heart Records(2009)

By BARRY THOMPSON | July 1, 2009

3.0 Stars

Stick around any scene long enough and after a while everyone's been in a band with everyone else. Although the ingredients for the stew that is the New Alibis are former or current members of other notable Boston punk outfits (Lost City Angels, Far from Finished, the Marvels), this by itself does not make them a supergroup.

Also, supergroups usually suck, and the New Alibis do not. A fuck-ton of bands have stumbled into cliché by preserving the traditional mantra of Boston punk: "We're hard-working-class dudes, but sometimes we cry into our whiskey, the Clash rule, etc." The New Alibis avoid that pitfall on this EP, despite indicating that they too have wept into their booze once or twice, and that they really like the Clash. The difference is in the details.

Blastoff track "Dragged" glues your balls to the wall, not with a guitar lick but with a bass hook that alternately clobbers and scurries about surf-punkishly. The title track, a sentimental bar ballad, is more Bruce Springsteen than done-to-death Irish folk. The punchy little "Faith in Nothing" illustrates the inherent problem with nihilism: believing in nothing is fun only till it gets boring.

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