Send "Social Distortion " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Absolutepunk |
 Listening to Social Distortion's seventh full-length album is a little like watching your favorite major-league slugger struggle at the plate in what should have been his best last at-bat ever. All your life, you've admired from afar and hung the posters on your wall. Yet here they are, older with large gaps between productive seasons, and you're feeling a little letdown by how, well, sluggish this has all amounted to. Nostalgia lurks, there's still some talent in that bat and glimpses of divinity come & go... but alas, it all leaves you asking questions; searching for answers.Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes is a slight departure from Social D's previous few albums, many of which (as any fan will note) take much too long to arrive in our ear canals. It's been seven years since we last saw Mike Ness and company release a proper album, and for their first on Epitaph, it's a concoction of trademark style, signature tunes and a toned-down version of the Mike Ness we all know and love. After nearly 30 years of playing rockabilly punk rock & blues, it's too easy to suggest the band ever phones anything in. Full of heart and soul, it's clear the band is putting in a daily grind and continue to impress in terms of ability & energy - it simply lacks the hooks, the feeling and everything we've previously seen in stellar fashion from a legendary band. Hard Times is less Clash and more Black Crowes; less Cash and more Hank Williams (who earns a respectable cover on "Alive and Forsaken"). Ness isn't as much 'true grit' as he is content and carrying less weight on his tattooed chest. For a veteran songwriter to turn over a new leaf after 30 years in the punk rock business, it can be rather jarring. For as many restless nights he's had in the past, he appears to be getting more sleep than ever - which saves up all the rock n' roll "come alive" theatrics. It just doesn't show up as much as it promises. The effort in Ness' voice shows (compare and contrast with earlier efforts), but try as he might, not much of the supposed evolution shows up....full text |
| Popmatters |
| When I saw Mike Ness perform in Chicago three years ago, he had stiff competition that night: on TV was the first episode of the new American Idol season. Of course, it’s not like most of the audience felt there was a difficult choice to make (there was beery approval when the opening band’s lead singer, a sort of real life Dewey Cox, said “those pussies in Rascal Flatts make the Monkees sound like the Rolling Stones”). Later that night, Ness burned through hits and deep cuts alike but previewed no new songs, which makes Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes that much sweeter. For the past several years, fans have watched this American idle, taking a backing band on solo tours but never collecting Social Distortion for more than a one-off song (the greatest hits incentive “Far Behind”). Social Distortion’s last album, Sex, Love and Rock ‘n’ Roll, was released during the end of Dubya’s first term. The one before that, at the end of Clinton’s. Whether this is a predication of a second Obama run is anyone’s guess. But unlike their sonic relative Bad Religion, who weave harmony-laden punk with political discourse, Social Distortion play the vocally-inclined auto mechanic act close to the chest like a scrawled diary (“what the hell is a blog?” they’ll ask). It may be 2010, but Ness and the boys have felt no need to change so much as their brand of shoe shine, let alone the distribution method. Forget pay-what-you want; Mike Ness will tell you what you’re paying, and you’ll cough it up. There’s no deluxe edition with a DVD and a sticker of bassist Brent Harding’s childhood pet; no cutting edge marketing plan; not a single note debuting on Facebook—just a diamond-solid collection of 11 songs rolling into stores on a physical CD in the dead of winter. But if you took this as an indication that Ness was grizzled beyond repair and out of fucks to give, think again, compadre. Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes was worth a seven-year wait, and the songs speak loudly enough for Social Distortion’s entire discography, brave new worlds be damned. Each track sounds meticulously crafted, down to the crashing cymbals and feedback closing out first single “Machine Gun Blues”—which should have been around a decade ago to soundtrack one of those Tony Hawk video games. If you liked Social D in 1990, 1996 or 2004, it’s almost scientifically impossible to dislike Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes breaks a seven-year silence from L.A. punk band Social Distortion, which, at this point, means singer/guitarist Mike Ness. In 2001, guitarist Dennis Danell died of a brain aneurysm, and since then, Ness has carried on as the band's sole founding member. Social D's last studio album, Sex, Love and Rock 'n' Roll was an effective stopgap, the type of record that exists mostly to justify a past-prime band's continued touring. My dad calls bands like this (his reference was always Skynyrd) "Lassie Bands": Because, no matter how many Border Collies bit the dust over the course of Lassie, there was going to be a dog on camera and we were going to say this one was Lassie. I'm sure that Ness had no trouble filling the studio with musicians who would love to claim that they played on a Social Distortion record, but after listening to Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes, it's clear that the venerable punk pioneers have ceased to exist in anything but name—a name which will command more respect as soon as this particular incarnation is put out to pasture. The evidence that Ness's songwriting chops haven't aged well is plain to see just from the album's tracklist. Go ahead and count the number of songs whose titles (and therefore, main hooks) are well-worn clichés: "Diamond in the Rough," "Writing on the Wall," "Can't Take It with You." But while the inspiration may have gone from his lyrics, there's still some fight in Ness's voice, as his leathery belt allows even the most tiresome refrains a modicum of grit. The band's guitars are as muscular as ever too. The problem isn't that the trademarked Social D blend of punk, rockabilly, and blues hasn't aged well, but that it hasn't aged at all: The band's sound hasn't evolved much since 1990's Social Distortion, and Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes doesn't alter that holding pattern. If only Ness was as concerned with keeping his own sound fresh as with giving patronizingly modern "updates" on the work of his forbears. On "California (Hustle and Flow)," he takes obvious liberties with the Rolling Stones's "All Down the Line," from Keith Richards's blues leads, to the gospel backup vocals, to the hook, which has him singing, "Take me down/Take me on down the line." Caught red-handed? Probably not. It's no secret that Ness is a diehard Stones fan, given that Social D's Prison Bound contained a cover of "Back Street Girl," and Ness once joined Beck and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder for a live version of the Exile on Main St. country ballad "Sweet Virginia." Not enough fan service? This album also contains a gratuitous hard-rock makeover of Hank Williams's "Alone and Forsaken," on which the band can only be accused of ripping off their own catalogue. By replacing the sparely arranged original with chugging punk power chords and jangly Heartbreakers riffs, the song follows exactly the same formula as their famous "Ring of Fire" rendition, and, for that matter, the aforementioned Stones cover. Homage is not without merits. Hell, shameless rip-offs can be defended when executed with enough style. However you peg Social D's fumbling about the roots-rock canon, it remains disheartening because the version of this band that made hardcore history between 1983 and 1993 wasn't just playing to pay tribute; they were playing for their own place among the all-time greats, and there are at least three albums that suggest they deserve that place. But Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes is throwback after throwback, the album where the roots-rock traditionalism that has always been the counterweight to Ness's punk modernism finally comes crushing down on the whole Social Distortion enterprise. The album is capped off with a song called "Still Alive," the title of which seems to pretty well encapsulate Ness's aspirations for this band....full text |
Social Distortion lyrics
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