Fat Wreck Chords – 2021
It was supposed to be a double album. If you didn’t know, that’s why Fat Mike and the guys’ fourteenth studio album ended up with the name Single Album. When they were finished writing, there just weren’t enough songs that they felt were good enough.
NOFX likes to sneak gags into their album titles. Maybe it’s so that you know not to take them too seriously. Much like most songwriters, Mike pulls from his personal life for inspiration for his songs, and he tends to favor the darker parts of it. Maybe pun-riddled album titles are meant to remind us that NOFX isn’t an emo band, and that there’s room to look at the subject matter with a sense of humor. Also, over the course of nearly 35 years as the frontman of one of America’s most revered punk bands, Fat Mike has occasionally come across as preachy about what he thinks qualifies as “punk” (see the lyrics to NOFX’s biggest song to date, “Separation of Church and Skate”). Maybe if they make the album titles funny, we’ll all know that he’s punk enough to have an opinion, but not quite so punk that you have to agree with him to enjoy his music.
Agree or disagree with him, Mike has been vocal over the years about his stance on religion (big nope), conservative republicanism (even bigger nope), and drug use (not that bad- would recommend). Having established these things over the course of a nearly three-and-a-half-decade-long career, Single Album is a quick interjection in Fat Mike’s ongoing sermon about how he thinks you should feel about these things, admitting that maybe there are other points of view.
Well, except the part about conservative republicanism. There’s still really only one way to look at that.
The highlight song, for me, is the opening track. Single Album kicks off with “The Big Drag,” which Mike admits is “weird.” He said in a recent interview with Q on CBC that he wouldn’t have written that song if he weren’t trying to make a double album. It clocks in at about six minutes, has varying measure lengths, and no real pattern of verse-chorus – certainly not typical for a skate punk album opener. “There’s only a finite number of tomorrows,” he reminds us as the song winds down.
Also very notable – the almost uncomfortable transparency of “Birmingham.” “When I’m alone it’s just self-destruction,” Mike sings with startling irreverence. I have not heard that Mike is making any serious, concerted effort to become sober, but if he ever does, “Birmingham” will be where his journey begins. It is, to me, possibly the best song NOFX has ever released.
Single Album, fresh off the Trump Administration train ride, could have been the preachiest, gatekeeping-est NOFX album to date. Fat Mike and the guys could have spent 36 minutes telling us why we are all so stupid for not thinking the way they do. Instead, they turn the focus inward, offering an honest, if sometimes bleak glimpse into the mind of an infamous punk rock anti-hero. And they do it with the same infectiously catchy riffs and melodies that we’ve come to love from NOFX.
Our Score 8/10
-Reach James, the author of this review, at jamesunderfire@gmail.com.