If your soul begs to chant “Oi!” while grizzled men shout about the world’s problems then the new Fool’s Errand record will be right up your alley. Big Up The Impact is an explosive album that comes in loud and within 33-ish minutes is back on its merry way. Fool’s Errand hails from Las Vegas but their sound takes me to somewhere in an East Coast urban sprawl full of those cabbie hats and the smell of whiskey.
“It’s a Problem” is a catchy opening track, a memorable opening riff draws you in before setting the tone, “Sometimes this high can get me so low, try to resist it, that’s a no-go // I found a message in a bottle and it just said help me.” I like when an album opens with a track that just lays out how the singer is doing, really sets the tone for where their head is at for the album itself.
Then we’re off to the races with anthemic tracks like “Shit,” “Wrote you a song, it’s only 4 letters long. Easy for someone like you to recite” and “I Think I Like It!” which was an unexpectedly tender-hearted song lyric-wise: “One kiss is like a kick to the teeth, she only laughs when we’re disturbing the peace. This girl’ll be the death of me, but I think that I like it!“
Before I could process what was happening “Know What I Mean” had come and gone. If the song was a punch all I’d have to know it by was the ring impressions on my face. Lady Liberty stares down her nose at us in “Goin’ Back to Jersey” and we get a peek into what it feels like to feel alienated by the place you call home: “Lace up those boots, cuz we’re all goin’ down the Shore but our old stomping grounds don’t look the same and I’m not sure if I belong here anymore but I just can’t forget from where I came.”
This album has lots of themes of a world constantly changing around us, the rampant use of alcohol to tamp down the feelings caused by that same world, and the need to reach out to our friends and our loved ones during those uncertain times. My favorite track on the album “Lost a Friend” holds the same emotional poignancy, “Here’s to a new beginning, here’s to a bitter end. Here’s to the long walk on my own cuz I just lost a friend.” While we’re still mourning the spectres left in our memory we get angry; angry at the grind of working until your dead like in “The Good Life” or, like in the closing track “Not The Same,“ angry at the wolves in sheep’s clothing that hide amongst your friends and neighbors.
