[rating=7.00]
For four best friends from Brooklyn, forming a band and writing songs just came organically. The boys in Rips share the same musical influences mostly made up of 70’s NYC bands like The Ramones, Television and Johnny Thunder with a healthy dose of Sonic Youth and The Strokes mixed in. By combining these influences with their own aptitude for rock music, the Brooklyn-based quartet has come up with their contribution to the NYC rock scene. Having already created a buzz in the New York music scene by relentlessly playing shows since their formation in 2013, Rips are finally ready to release their eponymous debut this year.
From the start, the band’s influences are prevalent, but not in an unoriginal way. While “Losing II” and “Malibu Entropy” bring to mind some of the best of Sonic Youth and Television, they still manage to turn it into their own sound with tight guitar riffs and blazing drums. “Break” has a more frenzied feel, channeling a bit of the Ramones and The Strokes and sharing the same slashing ferocity as “Damaged” a few tracks later. While most of the tracks on Rips fall into the vein of NYC rock, some of the more standout tracks come toward the end of the album when the guitars take more of a back seat to the vocals and the songs become a bit more introspective. “Vs” and “Psychics” feature cleaner guitar riffs and cool bouncy bass grooves. The album ends with “Losing” and probably does the best job on the album of effortlessly combining their influences from every decade to really showcase their own unique sound.
Having been produced by Austin Brown of Parquet Courts, the album retains much of the same groovy energy that can be found on some of Brown’s own albums. Many times throughout Brown’s production seems to bleed into the songs, making them sound more like Parquet Courts than Rips. However, the debut album from Rips is one that is both fun to listen to and full of tight tracks. Rips show great promise and are hopefully a band that will continue to grow into their own sound.
