Reel Big Fish to Play the Fox Theatre, 1/11

Earlier this year, Reel Big Fish released their 7th studio album, Candy Coated Fury (Rock Ridge Music), an inspired and infectiously catchy return to the hyperkinetic ska and biting wit of the band’s beloved early albums. “This album is a lot like our first two albums. It’s got a lot of the same intensity, frantic energy in the music, and the same sarcastic sense of humor.

 Candy Coated Fury is Reel Big Fish’s first album of newly recorded original material in five years. Overall, it’s the seventh in the band’s twenty year history, and it feels as vital and vitriolic as RBF’s foundational releases. The record opens with the huge sing-along vocal, balmy horns, and hyperactive ska groove of “Everyone Else Is An Asshole.” The track is an exceptional distillation of Reel Big Fish’s classic euphorically-juvenile ska punk. The stately arena riffs in “I Dare You To Break My Heart” reference cock rock, new wave, and soul without sacrificing one iota of RBF’s signature simmering skank. “I listen to the Darkness a lot; it was only a matter of time till I wrote a song like this! I can’t really sing as high as that guy so this song sounds more like Kiss, if Kiss was a Motown band that played ska,” Barrett says, detailing the song’s diverse stylistic touchstones.  The anthemic “I Know You Too Well To Like You Anymore” features some of Barrett’s finest cutely cruel lyrics. “I think that is an amazing bad-relationship song,” he laughs. “I really captured the hateful love of two people who were once madly in love, but have been together so long, they can’t stand the sight of each other anymore but still say ‘they drive me crazy, and I hate this and this about them, but I love them.’” No RBF album would be complete without playfully irreverent 1980s covers. The band rounds things out ska-ifying the Wonderstuff’s “Don’t Let Me Down Gently” and When In Rome’s “The Promise.”

Reel Big Fish continues to tour non-stop, playing over 250 shows a year to thousands of loyal fans all over the world, gaining more and more underground popularity as the Ska scene continues to flourish.