Roger Miret is widely known as the frontman of the New York City based hardcore band Agnostic Front. But what not everybody knows, is that he has a great  love for oldschool punkrock bands like Stiff Little Fingers, The Clash and The Business. You could say a dream came true when he released the first album of Roger Miret And The Disasters in 2002. Four years later they’ve just released their third full length album called My Riot.

 

With Roger Miret, who came from Cuba and rose himself on the streets of New York City, it’s obvious a line like ‘Let me take you by the hand, back to the streets of New York City’ starts the album. But after these hard words there’s also place for emotion in the acoustic song ‘Everything I do’ (no not the Bryan Adams song). Roger Miret may not be the greatest vocalist in the world but he sure can make you feel his pain in a song like this.

 

Music wise Roger Miret And The Disasters have made a great step forward. On 1984 they were still a bit searching, but on My Riot it became clear they finally created their own sound. With songs like ‘Warning! Warning!’, ‘Roots Rock ‘n Roll’, ‘Janie And Johnny’, ‘Ones Were Warriors’ and many others that flood from enthusiasm this truly is a great album.

 

I’m convinced even Elvis would buy this album if he would be alive. The ode to the oldschool punkrock bands I mentioned before has worked out very well and the album never gets bored. With ‘Ramones’ we have another great song of even a greater band that was of course very important for the punk rock scene of today.