San Francisco's Dead To Me are back with their third full-length album Moscow Penny Ante and they've returned to the straight up sincerity that first brought them attention on 2006's Cuban Ballerina. The genre-bending that defined the majority of the group's last release African Elephants is nowhere to be found on this new release. While African Elephants was prone to experiment with instrumentation, song structure and even lyrical content, the fast paced melodic punk rock on Moscow Penny Ante finds the band at the top of their game and maintains the group as one of the most important acts for the genre.

On this album the group enlisted Matt Allison, who's worked with such bands as Alkaline Trio and The Lawrence Arms, to helm the boards giving the album a raw, yet incredibly powerful sound similar to past outputs by Mr. Allison. The most notable sound sonically when compared to their other albums is the incredible thickness of the bass. When it's just vocalist Tyson "Chicken" Annicharico and the bass you can tell how the heaviness of the instrument really drives forward the urgency of the lyrics.

Through the band's three full-lengths, two EPs and two split 7-inchs, the group has undergone a few lineup changes and this album finds the founding members of vocalist/bassist Chicken and drummer Ian Anderson being joined by Sam Johnson (New Mexican Disaster Squad & VRGNS) and Ken Yamazaki (Western Addiction & Enemy You) to create a truly unified and well developed sound. The band had toured with Sam's other bands prior to joining and Ken was an old friend which Chicken used to play bass with so the chemistry on the record is nearly palpable.

Lyrically, the record is both personal and socially conscious, which is reminiscent of previous offerings. Topics of songs range from childhood despondency, drug rehabilitation and even literary critiques of such figures as Oscar Wilde. The only time the songs seem to fall a bit flat is on new member Sam Johnson's songs where the words don't seem nearly as inspired, punctuate or overall well-written in comparison with those of Chicken's. 

This record features one of the band's quickest songs to date with album opener "Undertow", a song focusing on the seemingly endless plight of those in financial discourse and is followed by some of the outfit's catchiest songs to date with "No Lullabies" and "The Monarch Hotel". While Chicken sings the majority of the songs (8/12), Sam Johnson makes himself known quickly by the second song where he sings lead and provides a higher and more emphasized type of singing in comparison to Chicken's deeper tones and abruptly shortened notes. Overall, the entire album provides the listener with a very cohesive and enjoyable time while also implementing some thought provoking much of current music seems to disregard.