I approached "Voodoo Glow Skulls" with a bit of caution. After all, a band that has played on for a decade, performing with the likes of No Doubt, The Bosstones, Greenday, etc., should have thrust these punk/ska veterans to the forefront of mainstream music. Yet, as I search the archives of my musical memory, I can’t remember a single mention of them. This leaves me to believe one of two things: I live under a rock and have completely missed these guys, or, they just are not very good. Unfortunately for the "Voodoo Glow Skulls," I believe the latter. (Phew, and I thought it was me.)

With "Human Pinata," the record's first track, the forces at work became
quite apparent. The fact is, the band sounds good. There is a great horn section, a competent drummer, some good guitar work, and not bad…for the first few seconds. The downfall (for me anyway) came with the first vocal line. Frank Casillas stumbles into the song with all the grace of a bull in a china shop, stomping on what was building up to be a pretty good song. It’s not that his singing is so bad, because when he does sing his voice, however flat and monotoned, has an interesting quality to it. Hey, even the monotoned part isn’t so bad. I mean, Bruce Springstien made a career out of that right? The problem lies in the fact that Franky-boy insists on chanting and grunting out most of the verses in a voice that tries to be aggressive and hardcore, but falls flat in a void of annoyingness. Billed as the Glow Skulls most accessible album, it almost frightens me to think what has come before.

I could site a slew of tunes that could be considered the "better" ones,
but truthfully, they all ended up sounding the same to me. There is a great horn break on "Symptomatic." "Love Letter" stands out as this odd hybrid of Doo-wop and ska, but for originality alone. I hate to slag a band that has so much history behind them. The fact that they have lasted this long must count for something, and I firmly believe that all music has an audience, but I can safely say you won’t find me in this one.