Where have this band been all my life? This Kansas crew are possibly the second best band ever to come out of the state – behind The Get Up Kids of course. Anyway, up until a few months ago I’d never heard of these guys before, but I got pointed in their direction and now I’m left wondering how the likes of Sum 41 can get big when the likes of Mi6 seem to be ignored…
Anyway, ‘Alcoholiday’ is a collection of catchy punk rock tunes that blends an infectious mix of high energy and melody that takes in the likes of NOFX, Lagwagon and ALL into their sound. Oh, and they fucking rule. This cd contains some of the best melodic punk rock tunes that I’ve heard in many a year – mixing comedy with seriousness, speed with precision. There’s 60 minutes of music here encompassing 24 tracks, so for sheer value for money this is an absolute bargain. But the quality of some of the songs is just unbelievable, so good infact that I cannot believe this little lot aren’t bigger than they already are.
‘Lezbian Girlfriends’ kicks the cd off and it’s a fun tale of lesbianism – which let’s face it is a good thing, eh chaps? This is followed by the awesome ‘Stupid Little Things’, a song so good it could have made any ALL record and not looked out of place. Infact that song is bloody amazing – the first thing you must do after reading this review is track down the song, then buy this record. ‘Jabberjaw’ is almost as awesome, before the fantastic ‘Jeff Brown’, the band’s first single for Kung Fu Records. Talk about choruses to die for…
‘Gone’ is brilliant and ‘Bangkok’ is absolutely bloody awesome. Infact it’s simply one of the best pop-punk songs you’ll ever hear. Vocalist Ken Peterson sounds like Fat Mike crossed with Joey Cape and his vocals are best used on tracks like ‘6th Grade Crush’ and ‘Alcoholiday’, the latter has another singalong chorus you’ll adore forever. Then just when things can’t get any better ‘Mojo’ raises things up a notch further with a song about a chick called Jolene.
To be fair there are plenty of fantastic songs, and a few duffers too, but with 24 tracks that is to be expected I guess. The two audio clips are brilliant too, which means that all in all you have 15 great songs out of 24, which for the $10 you’ll pay is a veritable bargain. Mi6 certainly aren’t original but what they do they do extremely well. This cd is well worth checking out, you won’t be disappointed.
Paul.