Mark Vennis & Different Place - In These Times... (Laundry Records)

I remember finding Mark Vennis & Different Place’s previous single, “Small Town Vampire,” to be a lot of fun, a neat blend of dark and delicious new wave moves and punk grooves. And while that first sonic encounter (on my part) makes for a good reference point. “In These Times…” is a slightly different beast. It is not so much that you can’t tell that it comes from the same musical mind, but it is enough of a departure to show that this is music willing to test the boundaries, both its own and that of the musical landscape as a whole.

“In These Times…” is an altogether more robust proposition, still bristling with punk swagger but wandering more hard rock pathways, dark and honest, socially reflective, and again employing, as I pointed out with that previous single, a vocal delivery not dissimilar to the style that a young Bob Geldolf used to employ with his iconic band…similarly of the street and poetic, like a punk Springsteen.

Add in a searing guitar solo and a brooding vibe, not to mention an accompanying remix, which does for it the rock and roll format what dub remixes did for reggae, and you have a brilliant sonic package and a fantastic experience.

Mark Vennis is on to a winner here. Rock music without the cliche, punk music without the immaturity…a song that is hard as nails and still accessible and infectious. Yes, infectious; look me in the eye and tell me that you weren’t singing along by the time the chorus came around for the second time. You can’t, can you?

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