The Murder City Devils - R.I.P. (Sub Pop, 2003)

The Murder City Devils
R.I.P.
Sub Pop
2003

Rating: 5.5 midnight gang riots out of 10
 
The Murder City Devils have always been one of those ‘their first record was the best one’ types of bands for me, and this new record isn’t doing anything to change my mind either. In fact, it’s not even a new album per se, but rather a live recording of their final performance before the decided to call it quits. There is a new song or two on here, but it is mostly made up of tracks from their previous releases. There are even a fair number of songs from their self-titled first release on the Die Young Stay Pretty label, but they just don’t pack the punch that they do when you hear them in their original incarnation. Somewhere along the line the band changed their sound from what they represented on their first release, from the fiery Stooges-influenced punk to a sound that I might best describe as ‘organ-heavy goth punk’ (although putting emphasis on it being organ heavy and goth might be a little redundant). Their ‘new’ sound is still ok and listenable, but not nearly as appealing to me as that first release. As far as live albums go, you can’t argue with the sound quality on this one; erstwhile Northwest producer Phil Ek manned the boards when laying this to tape, and he keeps things clean and crisp as you might expect. I can’t imagine this record is going to win over any new fans for this now-defunct band, but it won’t chase away any either; but for the folks that were already on board with The Murder City Devil’s sound, this will probably fit just fine into your collection.