We all know Times New Viking at this point, right? Times New Viking, I think, are the revivalists of lo-fi music. I can't really think of any purposely lo-fi bands after Guided By Voices that were around before Times New Viking. So, because of this, we can give them a lot of credibility despite their recent popularity growth. It's pleasant to hear a band that doesn't give into the lo-fi portion of their music and still tries to write good songs. That's exactly what Times New Viking did with Born Again Revisited.
They didn't drastically change their sound in any way really. It's their standard sound as always, just with more well-written melodies than their previous album Rip It Off. Times New Viking didn't need to go into full pop-mode to make this album without having the same ol' DIY punk aesthetic that they've always had. When listening to this album, however, you'll find that a lot of the songs are more jangley than usual (examples: the title track "Born Again Revisited" goes from a detuned and in your face verse to a chorus pulled straight out of a Beat Happening tune, "No Time, No Hope" just sonically brightens your day and "Something Moore" sounds like a song from the Juno soundtrack being played through a broken guitar amp). By the way, the band mentioned somewhere that the album would sound a little better fidelity-wise, right? I'll jut pull a Joe Wilson on TNV and yell "YOU LIE!"
There's a small issue here, though. The album as a whole, is a bit repetitive. Some songs sound the same as others, making you wonder if the song you're hearing is the song you heard before, just revisited or rerecorded or some other way of altering a song with a "re-" name. Other than that, I have to say that Times New Viking pretty much nailed this new album, still showcasing the musical strength they still have left with their undeniably catchy pop-punk tunes. Makes you wonder, will they ever lose their musical strength?
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