3rd album on Triple X Records by the Adolescents, titled after the "Balboa Fun Zone" amusement area of Balboa Peninsula, Newport Beach, it is the band's only album recorded without singer Tony "Reflex" Brandenburg, who had left the group the prior year. Electing not to replace him, guitarist Rikk Agnew and bassist Steve Soto alternated lead vocals on this. The album also features the return of original Adolescents guitarist Frank Agnew (Rikk Agnew's younger brother), who had been absent from their prior album, 1987's Brats In Battalions. Balboa Fun Zone is also the final Adolescents studio album to include Rikk Agnew & drummer Sandy Hanson. The band broke up in April 1989, reuniting in later years with different lineups. In a retrospective review, Stewart Mason of AllMusic gave the album 3 stars out of 5 and said that Soto and Rikk Agnew's split songwriting and vocal performances " give the album an appealingly varied sound that ranges from the anthemic rocker 'Just Like Before' to the engagingly loose, Johnny Thunders-like 'It's Tattoo Time'. Best of the lot are the two entirely different tunes named after the album title, the smoking hardcore 'Balboa Fun Zone (Riot On The Beach)" and the much poppier, '60s-inspired 'Balboa Fun Zone (It's in Your Touch)'. Worst of the lot is a sloppy, basically pointless cover of John Lennon's 'Instant Karma!' Although there's little that truly stands out besides Agnew's anti-drug anthem 'Alone Against The World', the album is so consistently rocking and good-humored that it's a more entertaining listen than their uneven earlier records."
No comments:
Post a Comment