Punk band the Bronx releases first new album in five years

By Reed Johnson

Jan. 14, 2013 12 AM PT

“We’re not here to entertain you/We don’t care about your rights/Last night there was a crime wave and no one survived!” snarls vocalist Matt Caughthran on “Ribcage,” the head-banging new single off “The Bronx (IV),” the first album of new material by the L.A. hard-core power-punk band in five years.

Nice to see that these guys are keeping faith with their philosophy that orneriness is the soul of wit.

Formed in 2002, the Bronx helped lay the wreckage-strewn foundations of L.A.’s second-wave (or was it third?) punk movement. Led by Caughthran’s biceps-flexing lead vocals, Joby J. Ford’s bruising guitar licks and Jorma Vik’s street-rumble drumming, the Bronx unleashed cries of youthful blue-collar anguish and anger such as “White Guilt” and “S----- Future.” Another single off their new album has the ur-Bronx title of “Youth Wasted.”

A few years ago, they took fans and critics by surprise when they formed a spin-off band, Mariachi El Bronx, complete with violins, a brass section and traditional Mexican charro suits, and performed neo-traditional mariachi music with obvious affection and respect.

But the band never relinquished its poetically combative outlook on music or life. The Bronx’s followers can judge for themselves when the new record is officially released Feb. 5, following a planned Feb. 2 record-release throw-down at Los Globos in Silver Lake.

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