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| The Stryder Masquerade in the Key of Crime Grade: A by Neil Evans |
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The Stryder's Masquerade in the Key of Crime reminds me of the Heritage Inn in Southbury. My friend Bell brought into work one day and we listened to it as we flipped rooms and cleaned up other people's crap. After the first couple tracks it was evident that I had never heard of this band, the album rocked and I needed a copy, so I asked to burn the CD and that was it. I'm sure it got heavy rotation in my car for a few months, and then got ceremoniously replaced like so many records before with whatever new band made me bang my head.
A lot has changed in eight years. Graduate high school, finish college, get a real job, Bell moves to Oklahoma City with the Air Force-the list goes on. But in my recent endeavor to catalogue my entire CD collection in iTunes, I found the burnt copy of Masquerade in the Key of Crime and realized that great albums never change. As I imported the album into my library, the riffs, vocals and most importantly, the snare brought me back to the Constitution room and the reason why I love music. Admittedly, I've been in somewhat of a music rut, unable to find new and exciting bands that are void of pretension and focus solely on music and having fun. What I've learned over the years is to try my instincts, avoid blogger/message board hype and go back to my old records to find inspiration. Masquerade in the Key of Crime is hardly a perfect album. The vocals are sketchy at points, some of the arrangements are odd, the final track is an afterthought and one could make an argument against its production quality. But for these specific reasons and others, I love this album. The Stryder broke up sometime later and I could really care less about the members or whatever, but they've created an awesome album that is the perfect snapshot of the pop-punk genre in 2000. The single greatest element of the record is the drums. Drummer Scottie Redix's style is clearly equivalent to the godfather of percussion, Travis Barker, but on these specific songs, I feel he exceeds Barker's skill and single album performance, going nuts on fills, overly rocking out on slow songs and laying down technically proficient beats. Simply put, the drums are the star of the record and the mix illustrates this plainly. The snare is so tight and compressed, it almost seems unnecessary. I've had friends that are drummers tell me they hate the tone but I love it. Everything cuts through and I think the producer did a fine job highlighting the obvious strength of the band. Redix's performance behind the kit has made Masquerade in the Key of Crime my number two all-time drumming album (closely behind Riley Breckenridge of Thrice on The Artist in the Ambulance). The melodies are great, the guitars provide more than your typical three-chord progressions and the bass is in the background, right where it needs to be. This album won't change your life like Pet Sounds or Sgt. Peppers but it rocks and sometimes that's all a music fan wants and needs. When it feels like everything is watered down and commercialized, sometimes the best thing to do is stop trying so hard and trust what got you there in the first place. Key Tracks: Sucker, 11:11, King of Coronas, My Plastic You www.myspace.com/TheStryderRock |
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