Album Review: Middle Class Rut – “No Name No Color”

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First off I have to say that depending on the listener, Middle Class Rut could be considered alternative, metal or punk, to me they’re a combination of all three. So if you’re a punk purist, this band is most likely not for you.

Middle Class Rut, or MC Rut as they are sometimes called, are a two piece band from Sacramento, California featuring Zack Lopez on guitar and vocals and Sean Stockham on drums and vocals. The band was formed shortly after their previous band, Leisure broke up in 2003.

I was first introduced to MC Rut in late 2009 when they opened for Social Distortion at a club in Youngstown, Ohio. Originally, TAT a female led band from London was supposed to be the opener and we were looking forward to seeing them but when we got to the show and saw no merch for TAT on sale we knew something was wrong. A friend of mine went up to one of the guys selling the Social Distortion merch and asked “What happened to TAT?” The guy said he didn’t know why but that they had pulled out of the tour but assured us that we’d like the band that replaced them. He was not wrong!

Middle Class Rut hit the stage and blew me away. The music was like an updated version of the band Quicksand but with Perry Ferrell of Jane’s Addiction on vocals and a little bit of Rage Against The Machine thrown in. It was awesome, but the thing that surprised me the most was the wall of sound coming out of the speakers. I didn’t expect the music to be so full with only two guys on stage. If you closed your eyes (not something I’d recommend if you’re standing in the middle of the pit) you would swear you were listening to a four piece band, or at least a three piece. They didn’t play for very long and as soon as they were done I made my way to their merch table and bought the only CD they had available, a six song EP titled “25 years”. Over the next year I listened to that EP more than thirty times.

Now we move forward to October 4th 2010, and Middle Class Rut releases their first full length CD titled “No Name No Color”.

This is not a typical release, being that it is, at least partly made up of songs that previously showed up on EP’s. Normally that would piss me off a bit but with this band I understand completely. The three EP’s that were released prior to this full length are now very hard to find. The only version of “25 years” I can find for sale now is a $13 import, their EP known as “RED” sells for as much as $150 on Amazon and I could not even locate a copy of the “Blue” EP. So releasing some of these songs again seems fair to me.

The new CD shows more depth than the “25 years” EP, included here are a few slower tracks “Are you on your way” and “Critical Emotion”, (the later taken from the iTunes deluxe version of the CD), a radio friendly single “New Low” and an acoustic guitar based oddity titled “Cornbread” that sounds vaguely country, hand claps and all. Even though this release is more varied, Middle Class Rut have not lost their knack for aggressive, in your face music, “Alive or Dead” along with “Thought I Was” and “Sad to Know” are good examples of that.

Musically MC Rut are perfect, especially considering that there are only two of them. Lyrically, they’re pretty damn good too. The line “Your life, it ain’t worth wastin mine on” in the song “Lifelong Dayshift” is great but the best lines, “You better love your country and be willing to die, You better ask your president to live on your pay and still get by” come from my favorite song on the disk “One Debt Away”.

This is a great CD that I would recommend to most Punks, Metal heads and fans of the early to mid 90’s alternative scene. There really is something for almost everyone on “No Name No Color”.

And for you iTunes users, the deluxe version includes two more songs and a video for “New Low.”