by Danny Craig
Features Editor
For the fans of the garage band and the nitty-gritty, blunt, hard-cut sound, there might be a local album available to quench your selective thirsts. Recording artists Rent-A-Frend’s new release “Flocking Egg Beach” might have a place on the entertainment center CD rack.
“Flocking Egg Beach” combines flavors of modern punk and ska to bring an undoubtedly different set of ballads.
Lead vocalist Matt Sanchez creates sounds reminiscent of the 1980s rock icon Rick Ocasek, lead singer of the Cars.
Instrumental contributions Bill Farber on bass, Nick Cole on rhythm guitar, and Shamus Moran on the drums culminate an auditory tone that the band’s press release describes as, “appealing with great hooks.”
Rent-A-Frend’s new release provides clearly amateur sound with a hints of raw talent that have landed Sanchez and company performances at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go on Sunset Boulevard.
Rent-A-Frend formed in Covina in 1993 as a group of high school companions. “Flocking Egg Beach” marks the third recording for the band in their seven-year existence.
Entering the musical scene with their first two albums “Rent Una Amigo” and “Wasted Talent,” Sanchez said the group has “musically progressed” in its third creation.
“Flocking Egg Beach” provides the listener with an eclectic array of moods and tempos.
Starting with what is possibly the CDs strongest rack, “Long Long Life,” relays a depiction of Sanchez’s youth in Covina.
The remaining songs on Sanchez’s CD bring a sporadic yet too often long-winded display of youthful craft, including track No. 8, “Fist Fight.” Rent-A-Friend’s eighth track is the band’s only attempt at playing metal and rightly so.
“Flocking Egg Beach” concludes with a 12-minute closing piece that is preceded with an exceptionally long and unnecessary list of “shoutouts” to everyone but the band’s favorite kindergarten teachers. Such a closing suits Sublime’s “40 oz. to Freedom,” but a garage band’s salute to their favorite one-night stands and anyone who has ever given them a place to stay drags on for the punk junkies.
Although Rent-A-Frend’s latest recording struggles with the ending, many of the albums early tracks carry over and fill in the weaknesses.
