Album Review: Social Distortion - Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes

There’s something incredibly gratifying about finding a band who, thirty years and seven studio albums later, stick to their roots without simply remaking the same album over and over. It’s certainly a hard task to accomplish but Californian punks Social Distortion have nailed it. ‘Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes’ may not change anyone’s mind but fans will eat it up and quite rightly.

The instrumental opener seems to be something of a standard for rock albums of late but nonetheless it’s a decent introduction. ‘California’ is a track that could quite easily be passed off as a throwback to old school rock and roll, but it’s really not that simple. It’s punk with a definite blues edge to it - or, in the case of ‘Diamond In the Rough’, a good dose of country - without ever trying to hard to be something it's not.

Lead single ‘Machine Gun Blues’ is a smart, straightforward song and Ness’s vocals stand out with his signature drawl against solid drums and a distinctively rock riff. Clocking in at just over three minutes in length it’s one of the shortest songs on the record and, as a single, enough to give just a hint of what ‘Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes’ is all about. The obligatory slow song, ‘Bakersfield’, leaves a little to be desired. Ness’s lyrics are conversational and raw but it does begin to drag somewhat as minute four hits. There’s not quite enough power behind the guitar to call as rock power ballad and just too forgettable to be the emotional crux of the album.

The record finishes up with ‘I Won’t Run No More’, an uplifting anthem and a worthy closer to a strong side two. Perhaps it’s just a testament to their history but ‘Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes’ works perfectly divided up as if it was back at the band’s starting point and the record was on 12" vinyl ready to be flipped halfway through and it’s a reminder to the generation that picks and chooses individual tracks from the iTunes store not to forget about the power of an album. Individually, the songs are decent but collected together in this particular order? They just work. Social Distortion remember where they came from and have a good grasp on where they’re at now and this is more or less the album that they should be making at this point in their career. It’s familiar yet still fresh with all the energy but a bit less of the urgency. A comfortable listen from a band with nothing left to prove.

3.5/5

‘Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes’ by Social Distortion is available now on Epitaph Records.

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Francesca Vaney.