If you don't get the joke in the band-name, you may need to bone up on your urban dictionary. Sofa Kingdom's latest full-length is titled "Corporation America." The band name and album title, which initially seem a bit dichotomous (one silly, one serious), are actually a perfect indication of the band's sound. Mixing a rowdy, Jag-bombing bar band with a bitter Bush-bashing punk band, Sofa Kingdom bring the message with fast riffs, shot glasses and liberal slogans.
The nearly quarter long album blazes past so quickly, with some great sample snippets and short prefaces and intros, that the songs easily blend together into a snarling, debauched whole. The final tracks, the band-less "Preface" rap that segues into the sloganeering "When Bush Comes to Shove" break the album up, and bring it back to its political core.
The lyric sheet is nice if you want to follow along with Tyler Tjader's hollering, which is surprisingly deeper than "Bush sucks, lets get a drink." On "Conflict of Interest," he rails against the abuse of government subsidies through a character sketch of a woman buying cigarettes instead of diapers. Elsewhere (and a bit more obviously), Tjader lays out the requisite pro-marijuana track, which, as clichÈ as the subject may be, is tackled with personality and intelligence. Sofa Kingdom may not be your Ph.D. uncle's political punk band, but they're not your Bob Marley "Legend" listening cousin's either.
www.sofakingdommusic.com
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