NOFX
First Ditch Effort

Mediocre. The adjective that comes to mind at the end of the last track after the first listen.

The anticipation for the new album unknowingly began a few months ago by following on Instagram Fat Mike's detox process from drugs, among dwarfs, clowns, and other improbable encounters. After about two months of detox, it's unknown whether he relapsed or simply got tired of talking about it. Despite being DIY champions for years and opposed to any form of commercialization of their music, all the band members now strive to promote their new material with carefully studied marketing strategies. The album's title and cover hint at the first effort to detox and begin to think about life in a more mature way, without neglecting the usual dose of irony and political satire that has characterized their lyrics for the past 15 years.

On the first listen, the change in sound compared to the last 3-4 albums is clearly noticeable, with less distorted guitars, a lot more sound compression, melodies, and rhythms much more rock than punk, and generally the impression that many tracks resemble others already heard in their discography. I also don't particularly like the sound and recording quality.

The raspy and shouted voice of Fat Mike, on the other hand, I like as always, so much so that I would want to hear it on an acoustic album.

The album opens with a duet between Mike and Melvin alternating in the verses of “Six Years on Dope,” nothing new to be clear, just two off-key, worn voices firing over an almost punkabilly bass-guitar loop, pleasant but not breathtaking.

The downtempo bass intro of “Happy Father’s Day” lasts almost half the track and paves the way for 30 intense seconds where Fat Mike explodes his anger towards his father in a single verse that could be the perfect continuation of “My Orphan Year,” in one minute and fourteen seconds there is everything that should be in a NOFX song, no beating around the bush.

“Sia and Nancy” is the most structured of the entire album, and the supposition that Nancy Spungen led Sid Vicious to his death by dragging him into the heroin tunnel makes it one of the best tracks on the album.

“California Drought” and “Oxymoronic,” simple and album fillers.

“I don’t like me anymore” very celtic-punk as ironically hinted at in the lyrics, probably a track that fuels the pogo.

The drummer's variations on time in “I’m a Transvest-lite” are nice but not much else.

The album continues with some so-so tracks and some choruses more in the Beach Boys style than Bad Religion and El Hefe's experiments with various instruments.

The homage to the death of Tony Sly of No Use For A Name in “I’m so sorry Tony” is obligatory, with a beautiful piano intro by the usual Hefe.

The last track, “Generation Z,” is probably the melancholic ideal closing for the album, one of NOFX's longest pieces, where, in the final part, Fat Mike's daughters shout their anger towards their generation, the “no future” with which the punk movement was born. A great ending.

After listening to the album several times, the first adjective I thought of comes back to mind, mediocre, but after so many years as a fan, I can't help but appreciate every brilliant thing they have done so far, so I think that more simply, the album is not mediocre but just its anagram...medio-core.