Music Review—Black Sheep

Artist: Still Insane
Album: Black Sheep

Formed in 2006, Still Insane is a punk rock band from Quebec City.  According to them, their goal is simple: to play fast, to play loud, and to play everywhere.  The band’s latest EP, Black Sheep, will be released on February 4th, 2022.  Meanwhile, the title track “Black Sheep” is now available to stream anywhere you get your music.

Still Insane consists of Eric Dorval on vocals, Jean-Sébastien Arsenault on guitar, Steeve Rock on guitar, Jean-Philippe Bérubé (Bub) on bass, and Sylvain LaBrecque (LabWreck) on drums.  The band is self-described as a melodic punk band with 90’s Californian Skatepunk influences.

Black Sheep has five tracks: “Sleeping On The Floor”; “Black Sheep”; “No More Targets”; “Stay Home”; and “Thank You”.  The single “Stay Home” was released in December 2021.  You can read my review on that one for more details, but in summary: I wasn’t a fan, yet still hopeful that the rest of the album would change my mind when it was released.

Unfortunately, after listening to Black Sheep, I’m still not a fan.  The instrumentals sound exactly the same in every song, and the vocals are off-key and not on beat.  Now, I understand that this was most likely done on purpose in a “we’re too punk to care” kind of way, but it was a little much for me.  I think the generic sound and vocals could have been saved lyrically, but the lyrics felt juvenile and mostly consisted of singing the title of the song on repeat.

The opening track, “Sleeping On The Floor” seems to be about a man with a drinking problem.  I was actually very excited when I pressed play on this song because it sounded like something much different than “Stay Home”.  That lasted about 20 seconds in, and the classic punk chaos of frantic drums and loud guitar ensued.  At the 2:30 mark an uncredited female vocalist comes in and sings, “Hey dude, it’s me inside your head; are you really that stupid, to lose your wife and kids?”—which is about as close to vulnerable as that track gets.  The song ends with a monologue about someone defecating in a parking lot.  Gross.

The title track, “Black Sheep” was one of the better songs of the album.  Fast-paced and anthemic, the band joins together to shout the lyrics “Black Sheep” for most of the song.  Next, “No More Targets” is the one-minute-long version of essentially the same thing.

The final song, “Thank You” was my favourite because of the sweet: “without you I can’t imagine, how life would feel, each day with you is like Sunday”.  Unfortunately, the vocals were exceptionally bad in this song, and I didn’t feel that the heartfelt lyrics matched the angry, aggressive instrumentals.

Check out Still Insane on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.