The Longest Barrel Ride

Album Review

Originally issued in 1998, this is the San Diego reggae/punk band's sophomore effort; the 2008 reissue includes the group's eponymous debut as a bonus disc. To say that The Longest Barrel Ride finds Slightly Stoopid maturing would be something of an exaggeration, but their sound is tightening up a bit even if their lyrics remain firmly grounded in the SoCal punk/reggae verities: weed, surfing, the perfidy of cops, etc. Slightly Stoopid's most obvious stylistic referent is Sublime, the band to whose Skunk imprint they were signed while still in high school. And high school seems to be hanging on: songs like "I'm So Stoned," "Johnny Law," and "Running Away" are almost defiantly adolescent, and that's not always a bad thing. The headlong hardcore shred of "Running Away" and "Johnny Law" is actually more expert and more musically convincing than the rather stiff reggae exercises "Struggler" and "Castles of Sand"; ska-core romps like "Living Dread" are better still. This reissue appends some acoustic demos as a hidden track at the end. (There is a similar addendum at the end of the bonus disc version of the band's debut album.)