| Track List | ||||
| 1: | The Way It Is | |||
| 2: | No Apologies | |||
| 3: | Bite The Hands That Feeds | |||
| 4: | Empty Promised Land | |||
| 5: | Going Nowhere | |||
| 6: | It Ain’t Over Yet | |||
| 7: | Everybody’s Whore | |||
| 8: | Suck Seed | |||
| 9: | Temptation | |||
| 10: | Never Gonna Be The Same | |||
| 11: | Self Medication | |||
| 12: | The Best | |||
| 13: | A Million More | |||
On With a Lifetime To Pay’s opening track, "The Way It Is," singer/bassist Jim attacks the sense of complacency that often erodes the sense of idealism after one realizes just how difficult it is to change the world. So what, he challenges, results aren’t as necessary as the effort to reform.
It’s a pretty bold first step for a band to take, both intelligent and rebellious, and it sets the pace for Zero Down’s debut record. The band isn’t going to regurgitate the same messages that have been flying around the underground for 20 years; rather, it takes a long, hard look at punk’s relevance to modern society as well as personal beliefs. There’s still a score of questions left unanswered that punk rock was supposed to settle back in the ’70s, and Zero Down isn’t going to let them fade into history.
While Zero Down’s roots suggest With a Lifetime to Pay wouldn’t coast over issues — it features members who have served time in Strung Out, Down By Law and Pulley c the band easily steps out of the shadows of its members’ former bands with this album. At its heart, punk rock has always been a movement of the minds rather than one of the guitars, a truism Zero Down doesn’t shy away from on this album. Whether it puts the structure of capitalist worker/owner relations in perspective so succinctly even Propagandhi could learn a thing or two ("A Million More") or proudly protects left-of-center thinking ("No Apologies"), Zero Down cuts straight to the social commentary without wasting its time appeasing punk-rock reactionaries.
Much of the power of Zero Down’s lyrics stem from Jim’s ability to mix first-person observations with sweeping political commentary. As it tells the tale of a working-class toiler reflecting on poor decisions in his past ("Going Nowhere") or blasts the habit of escapist drug use through a first-person portrait of a user ("Self Medication"), Zero Down makes sure human faces are as much a part of its music as the system it lashes out against. With tracks that reveal the band’s own questions about its beliefs ("No Apologies" and "It Ain't Over Yet"), it’s clear that Zero Down isn’t preaching as much as searching for answers along with its audience.
The band’s musical side also shows a different face from the typical skate-punk band. While there’s as much power in Zero Down’s tunes as anything hardcore, it moves to mid-paced punk tunes that emphasize rhythm over the standard jackhammer beat favored by So-Cal punk acts. Guitars fly around as the bass pulls everything together, a formula that recalls the days of ’77-era punk rock while still staying true to the band’s origins.
These days, punk rock isn’t so much about changing the world, as much as dealing with the questions that arise in free-thinking minds. Whatever revolutions that were supposed to happen in the wake of ’77 never fully came to fruition; it’s time to let that phase of punk rock pass. That’s not to say we need to stop questioning everything, however — a fact Zero Down reminds us all on this album.
| - Matt Schild |
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