I used to love MxPx. Scratch that, I used to adore MxPx. When ‘Life In General’ and then ‘Slowly Going The Way…’ came out they were arguably my favourite band. True, those records haven’t aged all that well and the band have undoubtedly recognised that fact by toning down their sound on recent records. The change hasn’t always suited the band and their recent albums have been very hit and miss. ‘On the Cover 2’ carries on the theme; in places this is a lot of fun, in others it’s not so hot. Some of the song choices are inspired (‘Heaven Is A Place On Earth’), others not so (‘Suburban Home’).
It is a fun listen though. ‘Kids In America’ and ‘500 Miles’ (complete with a verse from ‘Surrender’) will have you singing along with gusto, while ‘Somebody To Love’ is actually pretty good, despite being a very strange song for MxPx to cover. As previously mentioned ‘Heaven Is A Place On Earth’, complete with guest vocals by Agent M of Tsunami Bomb, is a great singalong. And when Tom takes control of lead vocals for ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’ I dare anyone not to sing along.
There are misses too, sadly. The Go-Gos ‘Vacation’ is very average, while Poison’s ‘Fallen Angel’ just drifts by aimlessly. There are a large number of guest appearances on this record too which adds a bit of a party atmosphere to proceedings and it’s quite fun to play ‘spot the guest musician’. The likes of Matt Hensley of Flogging Molly, Craig Owen of Chiodos, Stephen Egerton of Descendents and Bryce Avary of The Rocket Summer appear on the album and make it a good fun listen. ‘On The Cover 2’ is fun. It’s not amazing and it features some poor choice of covers, but when MxPx get it right, they get it very right.