Rancid: Rancid

There's something fishy about punk purism: Considering that punk was initially intended as an affront to the status quo, the notion of purity in a mutt-mix genre of rock 'n' roll, metal, country, ska, and any other ingredients an artist wants to add to the music seems oddly disingenuous. Rancid's generous cribbing from The Clash, Damned, and other classic punk acts tends to lack the urgency of its predecessors, even if it sounds superficially authentic. The band's problem has been that it's got the moves down but nothing in particular to rebel against, and in the brief but bright alt-rock spotlight, its adherence to so-called punk tenets appeared oddly regressive when the opposite approach was gaining ground with music buyers too young to remember punk, let alone the heyday of Gilman Street idealism. Rancid has since regained some ideological ground, in large part because the current state of mainstream pop music is arguably worse than it was in the mid-'70s. The group calls its self-titled fifth album "the fastest, most hardcore record we have ever made," and with 22 songs in 38 minutes, it backs up that claim. At such a rapid clip, the nuance and melody of "It's Quite Alright," "Let Me Go," "Rwanda," "Antennas," "Not To Regret," and "Radio Havana" might be missed at first, but with further listens it's clear that Rancid isn't simply rehashing Bad Brains-inspired skate anthems. Instead, as the poster-sized lyric sheet attests, its stance is more radical than ever: too fast, too angry, too political, and too punk for radio. God bless 'em. If the band's similarity to The Clash seemed a mere ploy in the past, the same ideas suddenly come across as not only fresh but substantive when bolstered by a self-righteously assaultive tone that recalls Minor Threat. It's subject to debate whether this sudden vitality is a result of real achievement or just another facet of the failure of others, but the album is a refreshing eardrum-blaster regardless. Though a bit too long, even at less than 40 minutes, Rancid's election-year latest (and rumored last) packs power by swerving around the fashionable windmills and setting its sights on the real targets: hypocrisy, corruption, foreign policy, and the pervasive powers of mass media, each attacked with spit-on-the-mic conviction.