Brand new, old-school

The short drive to work allowed me not even two songs on Social Distortion’s new “Sex, Love and Rock ‘n’ Roll,” but the immediate sensation was overwhelming: The album sounds like waking up. Not hungover or sick, but waking up feeling good, well-rested and fueled by a night of vibrant, fascinating dreams, more sensed than remembered, fleeting images buried just out of reach but undeniably buoyant.

This is certainly Mike Ness’ most consistently well-written album, ten tracks and nothing remotely resembling a stinker. He’s not writing any differently in than in the past, per se, with lyrics still rooted in an honest take on the days swinging between down-and-out and slightly-better. But the undeniable maturity that has crept into his life is what colored the lyrics - he’s never had the death of a best friend to write about before.
While the lyrics may reflect life through Ness’ older eyes, the music crunches, swings and growls like any great punk album, falling right in line with Social D’s long-honed signature sound.

It’s been a long wait, but while Ness indulged his roots on two solo albums (each outstanding at times) the new album is unmistakably Social D, fitting right in with the band’s best work, 1990’s self-titled, 1992’s “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell” and 1996’s “White Light, White Heat, White Trash.”

It’s gruff, loud and wonderfully familiar.

When he sings “I’m the dreams you had walking down the railroad tracks,” my mind leaps into the song. I’ve never been walking down the railroad tracks, dreaming of a way out; but listening to Mike Ness, it’s not hard to dream about walking down the railroad tracks.
Ness leads off “Nickels and Dimes” (misspelled ‘Nickles’ in the liner notes) with a string of assertions, seemingly conventional tough-guy street boasts turned on their head: “I’m a vagabond king with a stolen crown / I’m a jailhouse poet, a genius, a fool.” The lines are purely rock ‘n’ roll, part of the history of Elvis and Dylan. Indeed the “stolen crown” echoes Don McLean’s description of rock’s great torch-passing, albeit unintentional, between Elvis and Dylan: “While the King was looking down, the jester stole his thorny crown.”

Ness might come close to being preachy (and sappy) if you don’t dig deeper than chorus lines like “Reach for the sky ‘cause tomorrow may never come,” “I believe in love now,” “You gotta live before you die” and “Angels wings gonna carry you away.”

But those quasi-platitudes are just touchstones; he’ll hook you with an enduring truth about the rough life, hard nights of boozin’ and fightin’, and then floor you with the wisdom hiding behind those experiences.

This is an album he could only write as a 42-year-old man, a punk on the other side of youth, a middle-aged street poet, tattooed by ink and years of perpetual edge-living.
The cover image is a shrine, a traditional Hispanic homage to the saints, complete with candles, flowers and santos. The religious implications are clear, but the santos are an “Orange County” electric guitar and 1950s-style microphone, symbols of the band’s roots more than their heyday. It’s a punk take on a traditional celebration of life; it’s a dedication to co-founder and best friend Dennis Danell, who died in 2000.

And it’s no surprise the backdrop resembles stage curtains more than a solemn cathedral tapestry.