Busting out of the northern suburbs of San Diego County, Bad Neighborz keeps the good vibes heavy and the subject matter light on their new album, all in favor of the ever-sought after sweet and sunny California lifestyle! In impressive top-quality packaging, this CD is worth its weight – for each song has such uplifting undercurrents, it’s hard to imagine a rainy day in paradise.
The album commences with a happy-go-lucky track entitled “Californiyay”: a definitive anthem for California residents anywhere close to the beach. Each lyric is echoed back upon itself, just in case any listening-in stoners can’t wrap their head around the wonderful world of “CALI-IIIIIIIIIII!”
Humorous overtones are also sprinkled throughout the album, lightly enough to be unexpected when it comes, like a rainy day amid the constant San Diego sunshine.
If the first track on the album is the anthem, then the subsequent second song “Sunny D” is the mellow mantra. Bad Neighborz draws a parallelism between their “give me sunshine, don’t give me no rain” motto to Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry”: when it comes down to it, life has to be good as long as there are clear skies, sincere friends and bountiful women. Even though Bad Neighborz displays a new sense of optimism over doubt, this track is highly similar to the first.
And that’s when the boys throw a curve ball; the rest of the CD is an eclectic mix of genre bending, timbre changing, and tempo alternating into one big conglomerate reggae party. Ultimately reflective of Sublime, it could be argued that the Bad Neighborz boys have been passed the torch from the hands of Bradley Nowell in this CD tribute to southern California – either by calling places out by name (as in “Encinitas” or “Ocean Beach”), or the album’s omnipotent scratching style that Sublime inaugurated over two decades ago.
Humorous overtones are also sprinkled throughout the album, lightly enough to be unexpected when it comes, like a rainy day amid the constant San Diego sunshine. An example would be the conversational lyrics of “World Class Ass” or the conclusive “Bad Outro” where the listener receives four whole minutes of recorded phone messages detailing the party lifestyle required of a Bad Neighbor. As a result, you don’t necessarily have to live in Cali to understand the surf scene, you just have to buy the Bad Neighborz CD.
Preview and Download Bad Neighborz
Track Listing
- Californiyay
- Sunny D
- Livin
- All Night
- Burning Love (feat. Tim Pacheco)
- Sow
- Once You Got It (feat. C$)
- Encinitas
- Dance With Me
- World Class Ass [Explicit]
- One Love One Life
- Ocean Beach
- A Bad Outro [Explicit]
Bad Neighborz – Sunny D Official Music Video
For more information about Bad Neighborz, please visit their website.
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Disclaimer: All views presented in this album review are those of the reviewer and not necessarily those of Top Shelf Music.
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