Death and Taxes - Tattooed Hearts & Broken Promises (I Scream)
So I just got to sit down and listen to the entire Death and Taxes record, (while doing boring stuff with data at work). The record is just so solid it's incredible. It's 42 minutes and 31 seconds of honest, heartfelt lyrics, a solid rhythm section and my favorite guitar player playing some of the best simple catchy riffs that I've ever heard. Before I had the record I thought quite a bit about how catchy some of the riffs are on the record, the guitar line from Tattooed Hearts (and Broken Promises) for example, is something that I feel like I can't even pick up a guitar without playing cause its unusually stuck in my head. Even the solos are great and capture the feeling of the song without being boring or noodley. I think its a really rare talent to be able to play the shit out of a guitar but to also have the sense and taste to know what fits the part and not overplay it. Mike and Steve are an incredibly good rhythm section and the drums and bass are perfect on every song, again tasteful bass lines and fills that fit the song perfectly. Jeff's ability to tell a story through a song is incredible. I really feel like this record raises the bar on what bands around hear can and should be doing. There's a level of sincerity to these songs that the Boston punk scene is sorely lacking, there's no going through the motions or posturing just raw bare-bones rock and roll the way it should be.
