After the “death” of the trend of the so-called third wave of ska ( and with “ska” I mean ska-core, ska-punk, reggae-ska, etc…) , only the bands that played it for true passion are still on the music wagon, while all the others just quit or ended up playing different genres: someone started playing pop, some others started playing the same music but without the horn section. Instead, Rx Bandits are showing that they used to play and still play music for pure passion, and in fact they are still alive and releasing albums.

“Progress” is the third Rx Bandits work on Drive Thru Records, after their debut “Those Damn Bandits” and the album that led them to success, “Halfway Between Here And There”- that had some really hot tunes as “What If” and “Wrong With Me”- this band shows that they are one of the hardest working dudes around today: since 1998 they have already released three full-length albums and also took part on thousands of compilations with their songs, not to mention their endless tours with A New Found Glory, The Bloodhound Gang, Home Grown, Fenix TX, and a lot more.

The title of the album was not given without a good reason: this record means a progress both for the band itself, the music and the lyrics. Musically there are a lot of different elements and influences, like ska, punk, hardcore, reggae and electronic music that plays some strange effects that the average Rx Bandits listeners may not expect; lyrically the band seems to be more interested in social issues or personal expiriences rather than singing of high school dramas or broken hearts. In “Analog Boy” they sing about people who try to escape problems with drugs and pills and watching TV rather than facing them ; the song has also a slow beginning and it ends with one minute of pure electric sound, that made me think how much this guys are “open minded”, musically talking. Another song is “In All Rwanda’s Glory”, that is about the problem of racism and of how everybody is the same and it doesn’t matter the colour of the skin, and the band express this with the most anti-racist music: reggae. It is in fact a slow reggae song, like Bob Marley taught.

Talking of the songs, there is space for everything: apart the two named above, there are slow songs as “Babylon” and “Nugget”, while fans of fast ska-core and catchy choruses can stay cool, because such tunes as “Get” and “All the Time” have some of the best melodies I heard so far in a band that plays this stuff.

I cannot say abything bad about this record, it is just amazing, well, Rx Bandits are amazing, and I believe “Progress” deserve to get a lot of attention, also from the people that usually do not listen to this kind of music, because it is such a good work that contains 15 beautiful songs that are above the common “ska” label. I recommend this to everyone, it is a great album.