Volume 1

CKY

Growing up on Bam Margera and the demented circus he orchestrated, there was no way I could stay oblivious to the music of CKY. With every placement of the band's music in skate videos, video games, or the video series that shared the same name, it became more and more clear to me how strong the riff game was. They were so catchy and Deron Miller's octaviated guitar tone was so unique, that I had to pursue more of their music. And that's how I stumbled onto their debut, widely known as Volume 1. With the first three tracks, the band is on the trajectory to craft one of the finest collections in the realm of hard rock and stoner rock. 96 Quite Bitter Beings has a riff that just goes and a wonderfully menacing, gruff vocal performance from Miller. Rio Bravo is even more menacing given the sludgy pace, the beefy guitar riff, Miller's possessed holler, and the warped sounds of dogs barking. The guitar riff on this cut also has a great deal of swagger as Miller alternates between dissonant chords and chromatic runs. We end this fantastic three-track run with Disengage the Simulator, a much more friendly radio-rock tune, but still packed with supremely catchy guitar riffs.

After this though, we encounter a steep dive in quality. We get The Human Drive (In Hi-Fi), which is an absolutely awkward mess. All you need to hear is the intro to get a sense of how misguided this track is. Skittering hi-hats and steady kicks imply something for the dance floor. String pads and the rhythmic strumming of wah-pedaled guitar bring a bit of a funky disco element. And then a cartoonish holler launches us more earnestly into the song. The combination here just feels amateurish, insincere; frankly a cut that would appear on the goofier Volume 2 collection. Add on the fact this track has one of Miller's least compelling vocal performances, and now I'm scratching my head how we fell so far. A little later we get the unfortunate My Promiscuous Daughter, which... yeah; it's not a very compelling tune instrumentally but this is small potatoes compared to the cringe inducing lyrics.

I've talked about the best and the worst of it, and the rest lies in the middle ground where I'm largely unaffected. I like the gothic, Transylvanian elements of Lost In a Contraption, but it's nowhere near a go-to song when I think of CKY. Sara's Mask is also plagued by Miller's underdeveloped voice and the dragging song length. And I can appreciate the experiment of To All Of You with it's washed out drums and phased guitars creating this submerged feeling, but it doesn't really have the song progression to support the four and a half minute runtime. So yeah, revisiting this was pretty unfortunate. This record could have been a titan of the genre. The first three tracks hit so hard, and then it sounds like the band padded the rest of the time with ineffective filler, some of it quite nonsensical. It really showcases both the absolute best, and worst the band has to offer.