Licorice Pizza: The Riverboat Gamblers offer an "Apology"

12/03/2008

The Riverboat Gamblers offer an "Apology"

If you’ll think back to November 2006, you’ll recall that I wrote about seeing The Riverboat Gamblers play live, opening for Joan Jett and the Eagles of Death Metal. Two years on down the road, I want to bring back those prescient paragraphs:

If there were such a thing in Orlando as a mosh pit or crowd surfing, the extreme high energy of opening act the Riverboat Gamblers would have set the crowd off right away.

Hailing from somewhere in Texas, singer Mike Weibe proclaimed the Gamblers had never been to Florida before, then proceeded to whip the crowd into a frenzy that ultimately would result in security coming over twice to talk to one of the girls standing near me. Ultimately, they dragged her off somewhere, never to return. The Gamblers’ music is a fast-paced punk that results in big hits for silly bands from LA, but turns into years of frustration for bands from elsewhere.

Needless to say, I enjoyed seeing the Riverboat Gamblers live. So I thought it was very cool to open my inbox yesterday and see their new single, “A Choppy Yet Sincere Apology.” The single is an early release from their upcoming album, Underneath the Owl, which will be out next March.

The new song retains the energy of their earlier music, but takes the band in what I suppose you could say is a “more mature” direction. “Apology” moves from the aforementioned “fast-paced punk” to a sound similar to Against Me, which is to say there’s some melody there but it still rocks hard. If the rest of the album is as solid, this might be the one that brings The Riverboat Gamblers that success usually reserved for "silly bands from LA."

A Choppy, Yet Sincere Apology.mp3

Labels: "alternative", new stuff, rock