Slick Shoes -- Slick Shoes

9/10

Slick Shoes' third album, Wake Up Screaming, showed that vocalist, Ryan Kepke, had promise writing love songs. "Angel" from that album is a career standout. However, the band was just breaking in new guitarist, Greg Togawa, and the generic music that resulted did not feature the band at its best. However, 2002's self-titled Slick Shoes shows Togawa and crew gelling, just as Kepke truly comes into his own as a writer and vocalist. The result is the SoCal punk band's greatest album.
Perhaps love songs and punk music shouldn't fit together. Unless you want to get really arty and hippie about it, there's nothing rebellious about love. Still, as the band plays lightning fast and at the peak of their skill, and Kepke gets more and more amorous, Slick Shoes' music grows only more powerful. After an opener of faith, a track about nostalgia, and another one about hanging out with friends, Kepke unleashes one love song after the next, from track four "Alone," to track nine, "1 A.M." That's the entire midsection of this 12-track album. Kepke's unique voice has far matured from the 14-year old singing on 1997's Rusty, and he has a few moments on Slick Shoes that are stunning, particularly when he belts out the climax of track seven, "Remember." The result of all this is a sugar rush of an album, like pressing your face to the window on a cold winter night, while you're speeding through the countryside on a bullet train. This is the jewel in the crown of early 00's Tooth & Nail punk. Even when they slow it down, Slick Shoes is magnificent.

I was living on my own and missing my hometown when my radio show got the pre-release disc for Slick Shoes. I listened to it (and played its songs on-air) that winter into spring, when the album was finally released, and I bought my own copy. It snowed that winter and the crawfish ponds froze over. LSU beat Illinois in the Sugar Bowl 47-34. Magical times.

2002 Tooth & Nail Records
1. My Ignorance 3:28
2. Pass Me By 2:54
3. Friday Nite 2:30
4. Ten Ways 2:20
5. Alone 3:14
6. I Knew 2:36
7. Remember 3:02
8. So Much More 2:46
9. 1 A.M. 2:32
10. No More Words 2:39
11 1000 Times Before 1:26
12. 151 2:21