Guitars, Drums, Tones, and Saxophones

Carry the Torch: A Tribute to Kid Dynamite

OK, let’s be frank; not many people, I assume, buy tribute records because they’re a huge fan of the artist being paid tribute. You buy the album because you like the bands (at least some of them) who are performing the covers, and maybe enjoy some of the originals. That’s more or less what brings me to this record. Prior to placing the order for this album, I was only familiar with Kid Dynamite’s Shorter, Faster, Louder, which I enjoyed. But I saw Broadway Calls and the Ergs! on the line-up of artists taking part, and I was sold.

And so now that this long-awaited 2xLP is available to the public, how does it stack up?

Well, the covers are all pretty competent. And they all sound pretty faithful to the original material. Kid Dynamite’s brand of hardcore is more often than not replicated exactly, the only real difference being that the singing here is not provided by Jason Shevchuk. There are a few moments where the artist goes acoustic on us, which I despite the competency of the performances and honestly, taken on their own, are damn fine songs, are more disruptive to the flow of the album than anything else.

As a result of the songs sounding so close to the originals, nothing on here particularly stands out any more than it did on the original KD album it came from. In fact, the lack of Shevchuk brings a couple of the songs down, simply because there’s no reinterpretation aside from a different singer. “Copout,” here performed by Endgame, still rules, but it rules a little harder when Jason sings it.

So, I guess what it comes down to is how big a Kid Dynamite fan you are. If you really love the band, the odds that you want to hear 39 recordings of their songs by artists who put little to no individual spin on them is pretty low, I’d say. If you’re not a big Kid Dynamite fan, but see a bunch of bands on here you like, give it a spin. If nothing else, hopefully it will inspire you to check out the Kid Dynamite discography.

Tags: broadway calls, kid dynamite, the ergs!