Long Beach's favorite sons captured something real about sun-baked SoCal life in the mid-90s, blending ska, punk, and reggae in a way that felt lived-in rather than calculated. Brad Nowell had absorbed everything from Bad Brains to Santeria before threading it into songs that stuck to you whether you wanted them to or not. The tragic timing of this release cemented the band's cult status, but the hooks on tracks like "Santeria" and "Wrong Way" earned it on their own terms. Sublime's eponymous major-label debut arrived a few months after the band's leader, Brad Nowell, died tragically of a heroin overdose. As a show of sympathy, the album tended to be slightly overrated in some critical quarters, who claimed that Nowell was an exceptionally gifted lyricist and musical hybridist, but Sublime doesn't quite support those claims. Even so, the trio does have a surprising grace in its unabashedly traditionalist fusion of Californian hardcore punk, light hip-hop, and reggae. Switching between bracing hardcore and slow, sexy reggae numbers, Sublime display supple, muscular versatility and, on occasion, a gift for ingratiatingly catchy hooks, as on the hit single "What I Got." What they don't have is the vision -- either lyrical or musical -- to maintain interest throughout the course of the entire album. Sublime sags when the band delves too deeply into their dub aspirations or when their lyrics slide into smirking humor. The low moments don't arrive that often -- by and large, the album is quite engaging -- but they happen frequently enough to make the record a demonstration of the band's blossoming ability, but not the fulfillment of their full potential. Of course, Nowell's death gives the record a certain pathos, but that doesn't make the album any stronger. Tracklist 1. Garden Grove 2. What I Got 3. Wrong Way 4. Same In The End 5. April 29, 1992 (Miami) 6. Santeria 7. Seed 8. Jailhouse 9. Pawn Shop 10. Paddle Out 11. The Ballad Of Johnny Butt 12. Burritos 13. Under My Voodoo 14. Get Ready 15. Caress Me Down 16. What I Got (Reprise) 17. Doin' Time UPC: 008811141325Label: MCARelease Date: 7.30.96Format: CD
