Even though I like drinking and I love hardcore, this record kinda shows that the two combined don’t always end up as something great. Murderer’s Row is the new band of Riley, formerly doping vocal duties in a band called Stigmata. While that band played metallic tough-guy hardcore, MR sticks to stereotypical streetcore: fast punky parts mixed with midtempo oi-parts, all showered with lots of backing vocals and sing-a-long parts. I myself have never been a big fan of this particular sub-genre, and this CD also fails to keep me interseted for more then five tracks. Fast tracks like “Watch Me Fall” and “All We Are” are alright, but the rock & roll-influenced “Don’t Want You Here” and “Some Fun” just don’t cut it for me.

The lyrics to all but a few songs are about being too drunk to walk or beating people’s heads in, which both qualify as ‘lame’ in my General Book Of Things. This combined with the fact that the lyrics could have been written by a twelve year-old and the fact that Riley’s voice just doesn’t sound as cool/rough as it did in Stigmata, make this an album that will be doomed to a life of collecting dust on my shelf. However, fans of bands like Discipline and older stuff like The Bruisers will probably eat this up. So don’t let me fool you. For the record: Ugly Kid Joe also released an album with this title in the nineties.