Good man Rhys Yeomans typed up a solid review of the new Animal DVD, which in my opinion is awesome! Check after the bump for the review…
“Since getting a copy of CUTS on Friday, I’ve watched it 9 times already because I’ve enjoyed it so much.”
ANIMAL CUTS REVIEW
BY RHYS YEOMANS
03.05.2010
It has been four years since Animal released ALL DAY, so from the outset there have been a lot of people waiting a long time for a new full length Animal release. We’ve had a couple of mix tapes, Skavenger releases and DQYDJ2 since then, but none of those received the hype that surrounded the release of CUTS.
CUTS open with a huge 360 by Mike Brennan and heads straight into his part and skips an introduction, which isn’t always a bad thing. Brennan has had a large amount of coverage the last couple of years with Transworld covers, video parts and a joint signature frame from WeThePeople. Despite this constant coverage he is able to bring us an amazing part full of bangers we’ve come to expect from him. I was surprised to see a part of this calibre opening the video, but with a team of such legendary status and amazing skills, it is always going to be hard decision deciding the order of parts.
After Brennan, we go into a few parts from the likes of Wormz, Marv, Max Gaertig, Mike Osso and a Jersey Montage. The amount of people featured in this DVD with full parts or a few tricks in the various montages is ridiculous, so I’m not going to write about each of these parts, just my personal highlights.
In regards to parts to look out for, Phil Johnston said over the weekend that he thinks Ralph Sinisi and Bob Scerbo had the most important parts in CUTS, which I have to agree with him and add Steven Hamilton’s part to this list.
Ralph is the man behind Animal and doesn’t get any coverage as a rider anymore. His part may not be of the calibre of others in the video, but knowing that one of the innovators of street is still motivated to get out from behind the desk and film a reasonable part is great. I saw that a certain BMX website posted a link to Ralph’s DQYDJ1 part, so for all those uneducated kids out there it might be worth doing some research to find out why the name Ralph Sinisi is held so high in BMX.
Onto Bob Scerbo, who is credited as one of the two filmers, editor of CUTS and also person with my favourite part. Bob makes street look effortless, which pretty much sums up his CUTS part. We all know what he is great at and this part is made up with a ridiculous amount of riding at spots that most would overlook. Whilst a lot of the east coast street guys have a very rough and ready riding style, Bob seems to make the roughest New York spots look perfect. When watching a Bob part, or any New York part for that matter, you’ve really got to look at the spots as well as the riding. One clip were Bob does a wallride into a small bank looks quite simple at first view, but on further inspection of the spot you can see this isn’t something you’re going to hit up on your way to work each morning.
A lot has changed for Steven Hamilton over years and he is no longer the little clean cut kid we remember from the early animal days. His part has possibly the best song in the video and doesn’t feature any pegs, which for an Animal video is very odd, but Steven’s pegless street riding is what we love him for and his part is filled with very original lines and so many skids. There is a great downhill line near the end of his part that’s filmed during a foggy day that fits perfectly with his song and is evidence of how natural Steven looks on his bike (and the great editing skills of Bob Scerbo). I hope we see a lot more coverage of Steven again as he seems to have worked out most of his demons which saw him almost vanish from BMX.
One thing that surprised me about this video is the amount of freecoaster riding featured. There isn’t anyone out to replace Ian Schwartz as ‘the freecoaster dude’ whilst he is off farming, but a number of Animal riders have found that freecoasters are great and can open up a few different tricks previously impossible, or just straight up ugly with a cassette. The list of guys riding freecoasters for at least a couple tricks includes Mike Osso, Jared Washington, Mark Gralla, Bob Scerbo, Tyrone Williams and Lino Gonzales (who I hear liked someone’s Colony web edit – OH SHIT!). I personally love freecoasters, but the number of people riding them is very very small, so maybe this will bring some focus back to freecoasters, which inturn will have shops stocking them again (anyone with a LHD 9tooth v2 in stock, let me know!)
No one really knew if Edwin was going to have many clips in this video, and when first watching it seemed like he was only going to have a couple as his part faded into a clip of people falling over in the icy streets of New York. Even though it was rumoured that Edwin was saving his clips for Animal and this is why he had nothing in every video he has been apart of in the recent past, when watching it didn’t surprise me to think that was it…..BUT IT WASN’T!! After the footage of people falling over, Edwin presents us with a part that probably isn’t as ground breaking as his early parts but is very solid with his usual technical ledge lines.
Butcher finishes up the video with a very burly part. Butcher is the rough and ready rider that is pretty much the polar opposite of Bob Scerbo, but despite this, and my love for Bob’s silky smooth riding, it doesn’t make his riding any less than Bob’s. I personally wouldn’t have had Butcher’s part last (I would have used Brennan’s), but last part is never going to be agreed upon by everyone. I was disappointed that his banger had already featured on the cover of Dig a few months back, maybe Dig and Animal should’ve worked it out that the cover was released the same time as the video? Either way, it’s a great way to finish CUTS.
I’ve skipped over a lot of peoples’ parts that should deserve a mention, but with a video that is over an hour long its worth sitting down and watching it with your mates to enjoy it for yourself.
Since getting a copy of CUTS on Friday, I’ve watched it 9 times already because I’ve enjoyed it so much. Even though some of the filming isn’t great and the montages are way too long, this is what you expect from an Animal video and it would be disappointing if they tried to get high tech and futuristic in an effort to ‘keep up’. CUTS is a great follow up to ALL DAY and is deserving of a place in your DVD collection. 9/10.
