What Else [Are They] Supposed To Do?

NoFX - Wolves in Wolves' Clothing

Fat Wreck Chords, 2006

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I remember being in high school, loving NoFX's most recent release So Long and Thanks for all the Shoes. I mentioned it to some older kids who were wearing Blink-182 T-shirts. They sort of snortled and said that NoFX hadn't come out with a good one since Punk in Drublic.

And now they keep coming out with new albums. And now, though I'm sort of tired of their new albums, and none of them have the catchiness or memorability of their old ones, I try really hard to respect the fact that they are still going. And the music does grow on me over time. It has on their last couple of albums.

With that said, this is just more NoFX. The songs are different but the feel is the same. Every once in a while they mix it up, but sort of in a predictable way. Like the last few albums, the songs seem to have been written over the last year and a half. They have their usual clever wit. The same decent but standard production (with the recent flair of having a couple of purposefully badly recorded songs, just for the sake of it). The same cocky fun with a subversive but obvious political slant. It seems to be getting old.

And that's the conundrum bands face. Every aging band has to make an important choice, either to change and piss off the loyal fanbase, or stay true to their sound and get stale. People who liked Metallica's early work hate their recent work. On the other hand, how many times did AC/DC record the same crap over and over again?

There are some melodies on Wolves that I can hum along to. And after enough listens, I'll have the words in my head. And then one day I'll find myself humming a song or two, and I'll go back and listen to it. And that's good. Because in the end, it's just more NoFX, and that's really not all that bad of a thing.

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(and yes, the title of this entry did come from lyrics from the album.)

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EDIT: almost a month after posting all this, I've come to consider this NoFX album a classic. It's pretty much on par with So Long and Thanks For All the Shoes. Good work, NoFX.