A common theme in my love of New Tone ska is that the releases have slightly disappointed me. I built up Kill Lincoln's Can't Complain, Bad Operation's S/T, and JER's Bothered/Unbothered a crazy amount before they were released, hoping that New Tone's ska-punk classic would come with one of them. Those records all wound up being good (maybe great?), but ultimately my expectations were way too high, though I've also come around on Can't Complain being better than I initially thought.
Bad Time Records put out a fantastic comp last year, The Shape of Ska-Punk to Come, Vol. II* and while most of the tracklist was bands that I was familiar with from the label, the fourth track by Eichlers really surprised me because it featured ska upstroke guitar over emo-trap drums. The vocals were also effected in a Wicca Phase/Lil Peep style. Honestly, it wasn't for me at all, but I was almost glad to see that someone was trying out this combination, because I hadn't heard anyone try it before.
*We've got to stop with the Refused/Ornette Coleman references. It's even worse than "____ is fucking dead."
Similarly I've been fascinated by Eichlers' record My Checkered Future because it presents a completely new take on the genre. Until the last few years, ska had been so stuck in its ways on both ends of the sonic spectrum. Good bands were often super orthodox and focused on trying to play an authentic version of rocksteady and bad bands were goofy Reel Big Fish rip-offs. Worse than there being no bands at that time was that there were almost no bands trying anything new or interesting. Eichlers is as far away from that trend as possible since it's a mix of emo-trap, hyper pop, and ska-punk. The songs are super short, which I always love, and the record is all over the place.
After giving it a listen for the first time and moving on, I saw a video of Eichlers playing live, featuring just the singer performing with a laptop, and it confirmed that it really wasn't for me. I love the idea of this band and the approach that they're taking, but ultimately there's a generational disconnect with some of the influences that I just can't get around. I'm just never gonna like emo-rap or tik-tok and have accepted that. That being the case, I still see weirdo kids making ska and that makes me happy because I was one of them once.
The most obvious parallel that I can think of for this record is the first three Bomb the Music Industry! records, which similarly took ska to places that it hadn't explored before. BtMI! (which I've always much preferred as shorthand for the band vs "Bomb") was the first ska band I heard to use fake drums and instruments the way they did and to me, Eichlers seem like a new version of what BtMI! were doing from 2003-2006. When I was in high school, I was so excited to be around what Bomb the Music Industry! did mostly because of how different it was. The songs were great too and I still like a lot of them, but their innovative things felt important and revolutionary.
So even though I don't like My Checkered Future, no matter how many times I listen to it, I have to respect it for being what it is and trying something new. I don't know man, this seemed a lot more articulate in my mind.
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