Rather Be Hated Than Ignored. Lower Class Brats

Look at the cover of Rather Be Hated Than Ignored. The four men in the picture will most likely have more than doubled their age since the picture was taken. This is the reissue of an album that was released in 1997 and sounds like it could have been recorded several years earlier as well.

Lower Class Brats. At first I did not find a lot of info on the band, except that it formed in Austin, Texas in 1995. This is the band's debut album after the release of a split single with a band called Templars. Wikipedia does have a page it turns out, although it warns to have multiple issues. The band still exists with two original members, singer Bones and guitarist Marty Volume. The other members at the time were Rick Brat on bass, Rob Brat on drums and non-founding member R.T. on piano. The band has not released a new album since 2006 and is now active out of California.

Rather Be Hated Than Ignored is an album that doesn't need a lot of words. From the very get go, Lower Class Brats pushes in its amps to 11 and off the band is. Its influences start in U.K. punk from the the late 70s and tapped into the same energy Dropkick Murphys tapped into when it started in the second half of the 90s, barring the Irish/Celtic folk influences. All solo are fired up affairs, short bursts of lighting, except for a very atypical piano solo in. And let's not forget a lot of anger and aggression.

All the songs are simply great songs that show a hard working band that lets their (power) chord built songs do the talking. Each song has a chorus that allows shouting along to. Each song will create a moshpit before you know it. Each song is as punk as punk comes. At the time, I might not have liked it the way I do now. I only got around to punk slowly by way of Green Day and The Offspring. Today, and I'll admit to not listening to albums like this on a daily basis at home, my appreciation of albums like Rather Be Hated Than Ignored only grows and grows.

This is an album that not just deserves a re-issue, it deserves recognition as a long lost gem. Wow, is the word here.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght