The Rinds Everything Dimed LP
They’re not the first, and they won’t be the last, to grab big handfuls of the RAMONES for inspiration, but the RINDS push beyond the standard template on their fourth album, Everything Dimed. It’s there in the “uh-oh”s on “Little Vibration” with its fuzzed-up solo, or in the new wave-y “Getting Told Off.” There’s also punk’n’roll from “We Own the Night” and its tale of partying in the witching hour, a song given a horror-punk injection on “We Own the Night (Reprise)”. The two tunes tap into similar themes to “I Love the Midnight” and its witches in the nighttime. But the variety can lack coherence and start to pose questions about what the Oakland, CA band—not to be confused with the San Diego, CA band of the same name—is aiming for. Moreover, at fifteen songs spread over thirty-nine minutes, Everything Dimed has perhaps two too many songs and runs about five minutes too long. Nevertheless, when it’s good, which is more often than not, they hit MEAN JEANS heights. Sure, it’s music that operates within a template, but there’s enough innovation around the edges to keep things interesting and prove that Everything Dimed is, mostly, well-thought-out dumb punk.
