So why is The Suicide Machines’ A Match & Some Gasoline on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I’ve written at length already about how The Suicide Machines are one of my favorite ska punk bands in part because of how strong and varied their output is. On A Match & Some Gasoline, it’s the songs that lean more into their outstanding third wave ska sensibilities that elevate this one very nearly to my best 300 albums ever.
For example, I can listen to the intro section of “Split the Time” endlessly, which overall has the “classic” Suicide Machines sound that could fit in seamlessly on Battle Hymns*. And likewise, “High Anxiety” sounds like a refreshing throwback to the band’s debut album, Destruction By Definition, from 1995. In addition, there’s a fantastic section in the middle of this one that shows off the band’s surprisingly strong vocals.
* A Match & Some Gasoline is the fifth album covered so far on this here best 1,000 albums ever project, and we haven’t even gotten to… the best of the best, let us say.
Songs like “One More Time” display the mastery The Suicide Machines have attained at this point in their career in crafting rock solid and tight two-minute pop punk-meets-alt rock numbers that are catchy as hell.
And then “Beat My Head Against the Wall” proves that they can still thrash it up with the best of them. And that’s not a glib statement I’m making there: this is meticulously crafted thrashy hardcore punk, putting it easily into elite territory for this kind of sound. See also: “Keep It a Crime.”
As song titles like “High Anxiety” and “Did You Ever Get A Feeling of Dread?” allude to, this album was produced in the spooky aftermath period of 9/11 in the U.S. The spectacular thing that The Suicide Machines do is to convey this kind of sentiment under the hood of highly infectious, bouncy ska punk with the super specific vibe that they’ve carved out for themselves.
Some stats & info about The Suicide Machines – A Match & Some Gasoline
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Alterative Rock, Punk Rock, Ska Punk, Third Wave Ska Revival, Detroit Bands, Pop Punk
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – not rated!
- When was A Match & Some Gasoline released? 2003
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #308 out of 1,000
The Suicide Machines’ A Match & Some Gasoline on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Suicide Machines’ A Match & Some Gasoline that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
There’s all this fighting and we don’t know what for, so the rich get richer and the poor stay poor.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.