With their 1996 release Turn The Radio Off, Reel Big Fish ushered in a booming wave of popularity for Third Wave ska that never recovered from its short-lived celebrity.
Living through the fallout of being one-hit wonders, RBF has slogged onward for nearly a decade putting out albums with various levels of success.
Unfortunately for RBF, they have never produced subsequent albums that were able to match their mainstream success of 1996. Their latest release We're Not Happy 'Til You're Not Happy, finds RBF back at square one with a sound that even the most casual of listeners can tell has not changed much since 1996.
Far from attempting to redefine a genre that they defined in the first place, RBF sticks to its roots to produce an album that lacks groundbreaking creativity but is not yet stale.
The album will garner a lot of attention from die-hard Third Wave fans with a solid return to signature heavy horn lines, catchy after-beats and Aaron Barrett's diary of lyrics. The songs on We're Not Happy 'Til You're Not Happy shy away from the punk-infused deviation that dominated their 2002 album Cheer Up and are better for it.
With humor, cynicism and bite Barrett does not mince his lyrics on girls, fame and musicians that always end at the bitterness of being considered washed-up. The album's frustrations of RBF as a one-hit wonder hits the fan in \One Hit Wonderful."" Sounding as if its being sung while Barrett sobs over beer in an Irish pub, the track uses bookends of radio clips of the band's entrapment from their early fame, culminating with an announcer introducing a ""Flashback lunch with Reel Big Fish.""
A sappy tirade of emotions that show how bitter RBF still is over being abandoned after one catchy song, ""One Hit Wonderful"" feels as misplaced and lost on the album as a drunk alone at the end of a bar. While amusing at first listen, subsequent spins would be better left without this track since the rest of the album is dominated by fast-paced ska beats that have more witty tact.
While covers of Morrissey, Tracey Chapman and Social Distortion are all executed with talent and grace, the throw-back '80s New Wave beat ""The Joke's on Me"" stands out on the album with the most originality and coincidentally the least horns. Concisely showing the conundrum that defines RBF, this track demonstrates how trapped the band is in its genre.
If they had included more ska-deviant songs on the album, they would have been dubbed ""untrue"" to their sound and roots, but when they stay true to the sound they defined, they are labeled as unoriginal and stagnant.
Nowhere near the fresh genius that was found in ""Sell Out"" or ""She Has A Girlfriend Now,"" the songs on We're Not Happy 'Til You're Not Happy nonetheless breathe major-label life into a genre that has survived for the better part of a decade in the underground market.
It is doubtful that We're Not Happy 'Til You're Not Happy will bring RBF a second wave of popularity outside of their die-hard fans. But for the time-tested sound they do project, RBF comes through with a laudable album.
They may be overly bitter, frustrated and exhausted at forces they cannot control, but when it comes right down to it, they make some excellent ska.
