Times New Viking could have freaked out on
Born Again Revisited. They got so much well-deserved praise from their previous album,
Rip It Off, that it wouldn't have been surprising if they had either slicked up their no-fi sound in order to gain more widespread success or gone deeper into the noise rabbit hole and put out a polarizing, cruddy sounding album in an effort to stay underground. The trio did neither. In fact, they haven't changed much of anything sonically. The record sounds like it was recorded in the bathroom of a busy train station with the guitar and organ seriously overloaded, the drums one step above garbage can lids, and the vocals pushing the needle past red. Maybe a little clearer than before, but nothing even close to professional sounding. The songs, too, are very similar with lots of hooks and strong melodies buried in the whoosh of sound. And as before, they're a mix of Flying Nun-style stompers ("No Time, No Hope"), art-damaged skronks ("Something Moore"), pretty pop songs ("These Days") and window-rattling rockers ("Hustler, Psycho, Son"). The performances are equally insistent and the packaging (for those of you who still care about such things) is suitably fanzine quality. In other words,
Times New Viking has basically made the same album over again and that's OK. Better than OK, even. If they make it again, that might be a problem, but for now there is enough energy and excitement in the sound and presentation to make
Born Again Revisited sound just as fresh and invigorating as
Rip It Off. ~ Tim Sendra