For the better part of a decade, The Bronx have played provocateurs. From their beginnings as an attack-mode hardcore band to their hardscrabble lives as road warriors to the twist of fate that led to their alter ego Mariachi El Bronx — an episode that itself was an act of defiance — the Los Angeles quintet has embraced a fierce independence
And as they prepare for the February 2013 release of their fourth rock album, one thing is for certain: The Bronx have grown up, but they haven't gone soft.
This represents the highest evolution of the band, which is exactly how it should be be," vocalist Matt Caughthran says of the album fans inevitably will come to know as The Bronx (IV). "We're the same guys, but we would never make the same record twice. And because of everything that's happened with El Bronx, we've grown as musicians. And that's why on this record you'll hear that the songs are driving everything."
The Bronx burst on the scene in 2002 with music that recalled the heyday of L.A. punk — artillery-fire guitars and percussion punctuating anguished missives about the perils of street life and the frayed edges of society. Now the band (Caughthran, guitarists Joby J. Ford and Ken Horne, bassist Brad Magers and drummer Jorma Vik) frames its aggression in different and, yes, more sophisticated ways.
"We made an effort to trim the fat and focus the ideas a lot more," Ford explains. "It helped that we're working in our own studio, with our friend (producer/engineer) Beau Burchell, and that we know what we want to do and how to get there very quickly."
The Bronx (IV) also reflects a certain musicality that the band acknowledges is a carryover from its work over two albums as a mariachi outfit. Mariachi El Bronx started as an act of rebellion in 2006 when the punk band took offense to being asked to do an acoustic performance and showed up in sombreros with a mariachi arrangement of the song "Dirty Leaves. Now El Bronx has taken on a life of its own, with its reverent, enthusiastic take on the genre winning fans worldwide.