COMMON ENEMY – Living The Dream?

Common Enemy’s music, manner and attitude, give the impression as if Hardcore/Punk never became mature over the years. As a rather proud and somewhat old genre of music, one with roots that will take you back to the mid 80s and even aspects of the late 70s, one would expect that a few changes would occur as time passes. Like in all genres of music, however in the case of this kind of music, it’s bound to stay that way until someday bands would drop it off. Common Enemy’s debut run in 1998 led to the same outbreak of any album of the kind following the usual nonsense stuff of skating, good time of the youth, video games, gory horror freak shows alongside serious political serious issues yet performed and maintained with loads of laughs and sarcasm.

The band’s new album, Living The Dream?, released under DRP Records is another addition to a long list of Hardcore / Punk albums that in many ways are deeply connected to their ancestral roots of the 80s.

Nonetheless, Living The Dream? is a good and yet disturbing question, because from this end, this dream is not so pink but rather green with mucus spots on its cover. In comparison to great acts that also derived their potential and material from the Punk roots, M.O.D and S.O.D as two great American Hardcore frontlines, whether uncreative, as some of this kind of music is, it still has something to offer to the listener. While hearing Living The Dream?, it’s a whole lot different and it starts with the ultra constant repetitive riffs of Hardcore / Punk followed by the almost never changing, and sometimes unbearable / annoying high pitched singing pattern by Gary Critical and ending with several similarities between songs.

Common Enemy and bands like it are known to be free spirit guys who just want their music to be as flowing as their beers and Jack. Well, this cause sounds great and so far it happens on the album, however with overused music writing of past years and with a somewhat lack of originality even to the minimum extent. It’s swell what these dudes can do with hard and speedy with fun and games, but the fact is that after a few spins it comes down to the conclusion that it is hard to find anything cool in it. Just to be clear on that, the themes change, yet the musical compositions are very common as Common Enemy have been heard for thousands of times by the other simplistic Hardcore / Punk band.

The first song of the album starts with “We are still having fun…”. As far as this album is concerned, fun is something that is a bit hard to identify with here. There are a few songs which make a difference in a way like “We Are Under Attack” (also can be seen on the band’s webpage as a new video of blood sucking zombies and gory parts), “Living The Dream?” (with a special appearance of another singer and “surprisingly” the two sound similar to one another), “Thrash House”, “Pac-Man Fever”, “Bail Out” , “Syphon & Destroy” and “Standing In Line”.

It’s sad to say but this album didn’t came through as a satisfying release, yet with a few changes and maybe some tune ups, Common Enemy can really stand by their name as a Hardcore / Punk outfit and write better material for their next release.