Reviews

Every once in a while a band is so long-lasting and prolific that they are forced to make a choice about their artistic direction which they realize could alienate their diehard fans.  They realize, however, that they have played every four chord combination, every octave melody, and every two minute punk rock song possible.  Nofx have…nah, I’m just kidding.  The new effort from the ancient kings of the punk rock lifestyle has returned with the same chords and the same melodies as on the previous thousand releases, and yet still manages to be something worth listening to and engaging with.  I am not going to lie and say I am a huge Nofx fan, but I hope my respect for their casual attitude towards work and their extremely serious approach to the consumption of illicit substances shows through.  Nofx still live the dream of every apathetic teenager who, turning eighteen, realizes that they don’t ever want to work and would rather just get drunk all the time and have people pay them for it.  It is truly a beautiful dream.
 
But aside from the respect I have for them, what about this record?  Anyone who picked up the last EP Never Trust a Hippy, already has a taste, but really, anyone who picked up any of their thousand albums already knows what to expect.  The lyrics have become dominated by political themes, but there are gems of apathy and drug addiction thrown in at different places too.  There is an acoustic tribute track which mentions some friends and family (like Derek Plourde whose death shook the scene and inspired Lagwagon’s Resolve), and a song completely sung in Spanish.  There are shots at the midwest and familiar mentions of prescriptions and alcohol.  The political nature is relatively unimportant to critique from an academic standpoint because, unlike some other ‘serious’ political bands (I’m looking at you anti-flag), they don’t take themselves so seriously that they can’t realize that their anthems are trite without action.  The fifth song (The Marxist Brothers) is an attack on middle-class revolutionaries, familiar from its inclusion on the aforementioned EP.  It pretty much spends the whole time railing on college students and punk rock kids calling for revolution while sitting in a comfortable coffee shop or collecting rare albums from Rage Against the Machine on ebay, which ends with the now seminal line “The revolution will be a podcast.”  And despite their seeming disgust, you can tell they include themselves in this as well, so it doesn’t attack just their listeners and preach to them a better way, but rather seems to empathetically lock arms with the listener.  They found another way to be political, splitting the preaching of anti-flag and the academic discourse of propagandhi and including themselves with the kids.  Yeah, the lyrics are sometimes embarrassing in their simplicity, and yes, maybe they should stop supporting democrats if they are as radical as they claim, but through all of it you never feel like they are talking down to you or that they are really wrong either, just too simplistic.
 
I would spend more time on the music, but really it could be any album.  Many of the songs could be assembled pieces of different songs throughout their discography.  The ninth song (Getting High on the Down Low) even goes as far as obviously ripping off the central riff from the “All day and all of the night” song by the Kinks.  Regardless, what is important for me is that they have found a way to still be relevant to the scene besides just owning a record label and grifting money off of the kids (which they also find time for), and have a sense of humor about themselves.  In the last song they meet their critics head on.  Remember when Propagandhi asked “When did punk rock become so safe?  Well you’ll excuse me if I laugh in your face while I itemize your receipts…”?  Here they respond by saying “We own most of our own music, no one’s got their hands in our pockets, we don’t have management, we get to play loaded and only three months a year, some years we just take off, vacations are a write off, and so is going out (fuck us).”  Their point maybe doesn’t shake the criticism from other over the hill notables such as jello biafra and jack grisham, but it does show that they aren’t so far up their own asses that they have forgotten that they are doing it for the fun and for the lifestyle.  They didn’t sell out, other people bought in.  Can you blame a band for buying there own share of the game and profiting?  Probably.  But can you really say they have sold out when they have been DIY since the beginning and given tons of other bands a chance to continue playing music undominated by major label restrictions?  I don’t think so.
 
All in all, this is a good cd, and I think one of the better ones they have made.  It lacks the bite that Pump Up the Valuum had, but also isn’t as preachy as The War on Errorism, and is more focused than some of the older stuff.  If you are a fan, you probably already have it.  If not, give it a try.