Ostensibly a side project, Transplants’ debut album managed to outclass anything Tim Armstrong or Travis Barker had achieved with Rancid and Blink 182 respectively.
Featuring bust-a-blood-vessel rap shouter Rob Aston, that record welded west coast hardcore chops with hip-hop, gospel, ska and Motown – Sandinista-style eclecticism. Barker in particular played like a man on parole, slipping polyrhythmic sleight of hand and impossibly intricate jungle-isms into thrash orthodoxies.
What they could’ve done for the sequel is streamline the sound, buff it up for MTV rotation and cackle as they watched the coffers fill. Instead they’ve pushed the parameters even further. ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Gangsters And Thugs’ are quintessential Transplants tunes, beefed up with Armstrong’s guitar, virtuosic drum fills and drill-sergeant raps, but the bulk of the album sees the trio master an impressive disparity of styles. ‘What I Can’t Describe’ is soft-focus late '70s Memphis soul, while ‘Killafornia’ (featuring B-Real of Cypress Hill – all hail the return of an MC with an appetite for schlock instead of rocks as big as the Ritz) is a dirty skank that bypasses three decades of bad white reggae and drills right into Trenchtown oil. Not to mention the malevolently humid Cuban vibe of the closing ‘Crash And Burn’.
There’s no skimping. Aston, having had his prospective solo project iced by Warner, decided to dump no less than six compositions into Haunted Cities. It also helps that Armstrong spits out pop-punk nuggets like ‘American Guns’ as fast as his collaborators can learn them. The result is an album that buzzes with energy, ideas, melodies and more bang for your buck than half the records released this summer put together.