Useless ID
Symptoms
Tel Aviv, Israel
(Fat Wreck Chords)
“Israeli punk veterans show no signs of stopping”
If Useless ID were a U.S. citizen, it would be eligible to vote and buy tobacco this year. On the contrary, all of Useless ID’s core members are in their 30s, and are proud native sons of Israel. But don’t let their age and experience fool you – their latest album Symptoms proves that the band shows no sign of settling down. Though it can sound, at times, like typical rock-radio fodder, Symptoms is punk rock that’s just as restless as it should be.
Fans of the Warped Tour sound will dig Useless ID, if they haven’t already encountered them in the last two decades. Symptoms should be the album that endears the band to a new generation, and if all goes according to plan, it will introduce new followers to everything that’s historically great about punk rock. Symptoms’ frequent forays into spooky imagery, paired with quick minor-chord choruses make for faint strains of psychobilly, and offer echoes of the punk pioneers that came before them. The overall album is a little more melodic than most modern incarnations of punk, but it rests on the same driving, carpal-tunnel-inducing chords that have fueled punk rock since the very beginning. Symptoms shows that these grown-ups have evolved but haven’t lost their roots.
Produced by Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore
Additional Engineering by Andrew Berlin
Recorded at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, CO
Mastered by Jason Livermore