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When I
first listened to this compilation some months back, I was kind of surprised by
some of the Epitaph mainstays that seemed to make the Punk-O-Rama albums so
much fun for me that were left off of here.
Bands like NOFX, Rancid, The Offspring, Pennywise, Voodoo Glow Skulls,
heck even Guttermouth was on Epitaph for a bit.
But as
I try to create the perfect Punk-O-Rama album in my mind, it just comes out
somewhere between Volumes 2 and 4 for me, so I mean, it’d be really more like
just straight up covering an entire CD song for song, while this stretches over
different volumes in a much better way.
Don’t
think that means I don’t want additional volumes with bands like SNFU, Ten Foot
Pole, TSOL and others featured.
What
surprised me about this album was the songs that I knew but didn’t know I
knew. The Weakerthans is one, for
example, as I don’t even really remember them being on Epitaph. (Human Kitten does a fine job there). I also found that the Hot Water Music song
covered by Harker is the one HWM song I remember from the first album they did
on Epitaph. (Was it their only Epitaph
album or are they still on Epitaph?) I
just remember the “I hate this place” line.
Though
we have the obvious opening of Sledding With Tigers’ version of “Coffee Mug”,
which they manage to stretch out to just over a minute, double the original
length, my two favorite tracks on this album are not just because I loved the
originals so much but because of the quality of their covers as well.
It’s
hard to have anything Epitaph related without mentioning Bad Religion. “You” was one of their later songs, and I’m
glad it was chosen over something from the “Strange Than Fiction” album, though
I don’t know what songs were on what Punk-O-Rama’s, so don’t find my fault in
that either.
I’m not
too sure who The Last Centurion is and I have trouble finding a proper full length
or EP for him, but this song is one of those that makes you proud to know the
original and in some ways almost feel like it has been outdone.
My
other favorite, of course, is Bowsprit’s version of “Bullion”, which isn’t too
far from an acoustic Millencolin version of the song. That just has to be one of my all-time
favorite songs and so I was really excited to hear it on here.
All in
all, this is just a great bunch of songs by an equally great group of bands
that you can download for free.
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