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bronx white guilt
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by ben marwood
  • Type: Single
  • Release date: 06/11/2006
  • Label: Wichita

Mondays are Okay. I can deal with Mondays. The weekend is still fresh in your mind and you’ve caught up on sleep, or got none at all depending on how brilliant a time you had. But Tuesdays are another matter, when your days off are a fading memory and you arrive bleary-eyed in the morning with 80 per cent of your working week still looming.

My Tuesday is this week being made even worse by The Bronx, whose ‘White Guilt’ sees them abandon any punk roots they once had and join a number of acts currently trying to revive the American soft-rock genre. Vocalist Matt Caughthran howls and gurns throatily in the classic eighties mould, each of his tortured words practically indecipherable once mixed with guitars which themselves were probably recorded using amps whose settings haven't been changed in the past twenty years. It seems the song structure hasn’t been altered since then, either.

The lone opening guitar is predictably joined after four bars by drums and the sliding country-tinged notes of the lead guitar for four more, before the vocals join the party and the whole song kicks in precisely where chapter three of Journey’s Guide To Writing Songs In 1981 says it should.

Nothing here displays either the vitality or originality of The Bronx's earlier material, and the disappointment generated from listening to ‘White Guilt’ might be likened to finding out your lifelong rolemodel secretly assaults Big Issue vendors down alleyways in Hull. A poor career move for a once promising outfit.

  • The Bronx 4 / 10
Words: ben marwood

I quite like this song actually...

but admittedly it is different (and inferior) to their regular thrash.

Spot on with the soft rock comparison though.

Thinking about it this should probably stay as a guilty pleasure.


Enjoy this

I like the pop influence, it's only one song on the entire album, rather than an all out attempt to go "soft". I think taken as a one-off, it sits well with the rest of their stuff.


White Guilt

is probably one of the only 'slow' tracks (i can think of) in their entire discography?!? Not a career move but inevitable this would happen sooner or later, surely?! But Ben's right, it's not great at all. I love The Bronx, they can do no wrong in my eyes.


i'm from the bronx

and let me tell you this, nobody is listening to that shit. thats for sure.


It seems to me...

like a jam song that they thought fuck it lets throw it on the album... Strange choice as a single but it does make me smile.


Mustt be Wichita's influence

They're clearly trying to soften The Bronx up to fit in with the label's general 'vibe'... Seriously, they told us we were "too rock" to be on the label.

Still, Soft Rock had its place and if Caughthran's vocals are anything like they're usual paint-stripping best, it could be an interesting mix. Or sound like Rod Stewart. Having not heard it yet, I'm hoping for the former.


hmmm

considering that The Bronx's own label White Drugs licence their albums to Wichita I'm guessing that's not the reason. Plus, hey they're releasing the new Blood Brothers album which fucking slaaaayssss.


^^^ yes it does ^^^

I have much love for The Bronx, especially live; but this album... meh?


agreed!

I couldn't even be arsed seeing them live this time on the basis of this boring new album. snorevilles, much.


i hated this song at first

even resented it for being slow etc., but it's kind of grown on me. it makes for a nice break in the setlist and it's one for dudes to raise their beers to. it's pretty goddamn smooth actually.





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