Face to Face Touches Angst Where It Hurts

As long as the road from adolescence to adulthood involves pain, disappointment and anger, there will be a place for a no-frills punk band that taps those emotions as powerfully as Face to Face does.

The Inland Empire group opened a series of Southland shows Sunday at the House of Blues in Anaheim with renewed focus and energy that resulted from both the departure of guitarist Chad Yaro, reducing the group to a muscular trio for the first time since it formed in the early ‘90s, and some musical compromises stemming from its days as a major-label act.

Its new album, “How to Ruin Everything,” touches on the band’s own troubles as well as on those it sees in the world at large, most of which revolve around the toll daily living can take on one’s ideals.

That’s nothing new for punk rock, and Face to Face doesn’t offer much that hasn’t been played or sung before by the likes of the Clash and Social Distortion. But singer-guitarist and chief songwriter Trever Keith infuses such passion into his music that the time-honored punk tradition never turns formulaic.

In “Shoot the Moon,” one of several songs drawn from the new CD during the intense 65-minute set, Keith was both wistful and defiant as he sang about a time not long ago when “I thought the world would change with the right song.”

OK, so maybe it’ll take more than one. But things could be worse when the attempts remain as lively as this.

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Face to Face plays Wednesday, Friday and Saturday with Thrice, the Movie Life and Midtown at the House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, 7 p.m. $15. (323) 858-5100. Also Thursday at the Glass House, 200 W. 2nd St., Pomona. 7 p.m. $15. (909) 629-0377; Sunday at Ventura Theatre. 26 S. Chestnut St., Ventura, 7:30 p.m. $15. (805) 653-0721.