No Use For A Name - The Feel Good Record Of The Year

Reviewed on Apr 21, 2008 by Roel

I’ve never been a fan of No Use For A Name. Call me retarded, but I never fully enjoyed their rather melancholic Californian skatepunk. However, even I can’t deny that they’ve written some pretty stellar stuff. Their new offering “The Feel Good Record Of The Year” is no exception.

No Use For A Name have been one of the most consistent bands of the last decade. One might argue that they’ve become a little more melodic and a bit slower with each next album, but they’ve never strayed far from their trademark style. On their new album, the band combines a couple of speedy tracks that remind you of their older material with very poppy tracks more reminiscent of their newer albums. They’ve also included a couple acoustic tracks for the fans of Tony Sly’s solo work.

It’s fun that they try and mix up their sound, but it kind of wrecks the flow of the album. The first two songs are good old fast paced NUFAN, only to be followed up with a rather annoying very poppy slow going track. After another fast track they throw in an acoustic song. In the middle of the album! They repeat this trick again a little later in the album. I really like Tony Sly’s acoustic stuff, but please place it at the end of the album. Not only the style of the tracks is uneven, the quality of the songs tends to dissent as well. There are a couple of really good songs on here, such as “Biggest Lie”, “Domino” and “Night of the living living” amongst others. However most other tracks aren’t particularly interesting. A couple of songs even plain annoy me, suck as the aforementioned ‘Yours to destroy”, “Pacific standard time” and “Kill the rich”.

A short note about the production: it’s awesome. This album sounds LOUD without drowning out the vocals. Tony Sly’s vocal delivery is once again excellent. Gotta love Bill Stevenson and his Blasting Room. I can’t compliment this guy enough for his excellent production work.

I rather enjoyed NUFAN’s latest record. However, I find it to be a bit uneven and the flow of the record could have been much better. All in all though, this is a fine release. As I’ve said in the beginning of my review: I’m not the biggest NUFAN fan, meaning that if you dig this band you might want to add a whole star to the rating. Is this my feel good record of the year? More like feel good record of the month. With the heaps of stuff coming out these days that’s still a huge compliment I guess. You can’t go wrong with this release.

Album Information

Best Song:Biggest Lie
Medium/Type:Full-Length
Released:April 1st, 2008
Record Label:Fat Wreck Chords

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Tracklisting

  1. Biggest Lie
  2. I Want To Be Wrong
  3. Yours To Destroy
  4. Under The Garden
  5. Sleeping Between Trucks
  6. Domino
  7. The Feel Good Song Of The Year
  8. The Trumpet Player
  9. Night Of The Living Living
  10. Ontario
  11. Pacific Standard Time
  12. The Dregs Of Sobriety
  13. Kill The Rich
  14. Take It Home