The band have released their first studio album in well over a decade, ‘Born to Kill’, which they were promoting at their only UK date after previous tour cancellations following a period that has been part of a long struggle by band founder and frontman Mike Ness due to busy tour schedules and his recovery from tonsil cancer. His band are happily at their full form, smashing it with rock ‘n’ roll anthem opening title track from the new release, ‘Born to Kill’, a song that pays homage to Iggy Pop and Lou Reed whom Ness credits as having been key musical influences on him and featuring him cruising it with a guitar solo.
Another new track, ‘Tonight’, is a marching drum, melodious ballad, which showed Ness’ vocals are hanging in there after his health problems. Whilst there’s a nod to nostalgia, the band’s new album is anything but outdated, touching on today’s themes with well hashed out new material such as the desperate, crashing drums of ‘No Way Out’, which mixes with a melting bridge. Amongst their past releases, they performed from their 1983 debut album, ‘Mummy’s Little Monster’, with ‘The Creeps’, and the title track from that release, with boxing drums and a screeching guitar solo. Social Distortion also played ‘Far Side of Nowhere’ from their last album, ‘Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes’, which Ness confessed may not be as deep and profound as their earlier songs but was about the shared theme of escapism, with a winding, folk guitar riff.
More new tracks arrived with ‘The Way Things Were’ and the pedal tricks of ‘Partners in Crime’; the former about longing for times pre-Donald Trump (which he calls “The White-Trash-House”, whom Ness was clear to call out and feel ashamed of as an American) and the latter about growing up as a punk in a suburban neighbourhood which he was proud to have survived and made him who he is today; it contained beautiful vocal melodies inside a band that is all about pushing those passionate lyrics. Social Distortion finished their main set on their eponymous 1990 album with folk-country tinged ‘Ball and Chain’ and ‘Story of My Life’, the latter of which was drawn out and sung along with the fans.
The band did a four-song encore, opening on their cover of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’; although the high notes of this chart hit were a challenge for Ness, he was helped by the audience who absolutely loved the song, with countrified rainbow chords pouring into each other. They closed on a return to their fifth studio album, ‘White Light White Heat White Trash’, with single ‘Don’t Drag Me Down’, which Ness dedicated to Trump; it included one of the many guitar solos of the night played by him alongside David Hidalgo Jr.’s hacking drumbeat. Social Distortion are surely well set to do more tours across the world as they get back to business.
16/06/26: Social Distortion @ KOKO, London.
Photos © Peter Tainsh.
© Ayisha Khan.