Banging the Drum

It's a bit of a stretch to talk about seeing Scream in terms of pre-Dave Grohl on drums and post-, since the band had been having darn good fun in its early form just fine. As Banging the Drum shows — certainly while the group's earlier smash-and-bash roots were showing at points, and drummer Kent Stax was competent rather than suddenly fantastic, there's always room for a band that can hold its own while expanding its reach just enough. Three songs breach five minutes or come close, while the shorter numbers, like the title track, with its distanced drums and semi-gang shout choruses, and the pure guitar instrumental "Nod to the East," demonstrate a world pretty distant from immediate inspiration by, say, Minor Threat. If anything, there are hints of the same kind of reaching out that Bad Religion tried with Into the Unknown, or Dag Nasty eventually did with Field Day, an attempt to be unafraid of the anthemic (perhaps most strikingly on "The Rhythm Beating," a soaring instrumental that surges with energy and a sense of open vistas). Much of said anthemic approach often calls to mind some of the somewhat forgotten-by-history work of the proto-Goth/positive punk crossover in the U.K.. Certainly the shimmering, shredding guitar on "I.C.Y.U.O.D." and "Mineshaft Burning" owes more than a small debt to folks like Geordie and early Billy Duffy, for instance. "People People," in particular, is a strong number, a slow, stirring burn of a track, while "Walkin' By Myself" builds to a spectacular, strong conclusion. The album loses a little bit of fire towards its end, but in all is well worth a listen to by those who like their punk to show more than a faithful recreation of the basics.