Cloak/Dagger
We Are
8
Cloak / Dagger's We Are is a punchy, driving, and concise punk rock album. The kind that is tailor-made for those who enjoyed the genre in the 70s and 80s, and have grown weary of what has become since. It's precisely the type of record I've come to expect from Jade Tree Records.
We Are's fourteen tracks are rooted in elemental punk songwriting. The chord progressions are simple and the beats are straightforward. The vocals are of the half shouted, half sung variety and at times display a rough melodiousness. As a matter of course, Cloak / Dagger aren't trying to move punk rock forward. Instead, the band scours the genre's annals to find sounds that work, and present them in a loving and knowing manner. There are nods to Jangly 70s British punk rock ("Set the Alarm"), the frenetic hardcore of Dead Kennedys ("Sunburnt Mess"), guitar oriented new wave ("Red Hair"), and surf rock (Kamikazes). It's all done just right, and it all plays out in tidy twenty-seven minutes.
We Are is of those albums that gets the fawning platitudes rolling for critics, and that might be its one flaw. An album so damn cool pleasently rooted in warm guitar tones will undoubtedly fall short for those in search of a proper face-shredding. Cloak / Dagger certainly don't accomplish that. But if you appreciate the craftsmanship it takes to make punk rock, you will love We Are.
