So I guess Red Scare is showing the true extent of their punk rock-ness, and putting the new Teenage Bottlerocket album – Warning Device – out now, even though the official release date is January 8th. Geez, they really don’t give a fuck, do they? It’s already up on iTunes and on the TBR site it says they’re shipping them out today.

I was going to buy it on iTunes, because I got some gift cards for Christmas, but then I found a means of acquiring it without paying for it, so I opted with that. I might be getting a record player soon anyway, so maybe I’ll buy the vinyl to sooth my conscious when the it comes out.

I’m currently listening to it for the 3rd time, and I definitely like it. Their last album – Total – was the album that pretty much got me into the whole pop-punk scene (or whatever), and therefore is responsible for like 80% of the music I listen to now. So while I’m listening to this the whole time I can’t help but think, “Well yeah it’s good, but it is Total good?”

Total has two songs that I don’t totally love on it, “Crashing” and “A-Bomb” this album only has one song that sounds like either of those, and it’s the first song, and it’s like 51 seconds long, and I actually like it, so plus one for Warning Device. However, while Ray sings both of the aforementioned songs on Total, all of the Kody tracks on that album I love. On Warning Device, this seems to have switched, I think all of the Ray songs are great, and while Kody has a few definite gems, some of the others fall a little flat. Maybe they’ll grow on me. No one gets any points there. Through some kind of crazy Wyoming magic, they managed to make some of the songs on this album sound like they couldn’t have just been pulled from Total. I can’t put my finger one what is different, but I’m convinced it’s there. Also, the album gets stronger as it goes on, which is always a plus.

I guess I’ll have to let this one sink in a bit more before I give it the definitive better/worse than Total stamp, which I should probably aquire and use as the standard for rating albums from now on. Either way it’s a great record totally worth listening to, and definitely the best record of 2008 to come out in 2007.

Favorite Tracks after 3 listens: “Gave You My Heart”, “Anna’s Song”, and “Crawling Back to You”

BOTTLEROCKET!