No Use For A Name

Item: Hard Rock Bottom
Author: Gunner

Hard Rock Bottom

(2002)

Reviewed by Gunner

Discogs Bandcamp Apple Music TIDAL Spotify YouTube Music

Label Fat Wreck ChordsDecapolisApril 2002

pop punk skate punk

No Use For A Name is one of the past decade's most talented melodic punk bands, with consistently strong songwriting and increasing popularity. Hard Rock Bottom, their 7th full length album (not including their recent live record) comes out June 18 on Fat Wreck Chords.

Punk purists might cringe at the thought of calling this album anything other than "pop" and it would be understandable. Their last CD, More Betterness, was definitely a less aggressive, slower type of rock, and as expected this new record follows suit. This is not a bad thing. We are offered up 12 brand new beautifully written, sung, and played songs that are better than pretty much anything coming out these days in similar genres.

It begins with a short, quiet little ballad that soon busts into a speedy love song, the rare kind in which the protagonist is simply very happy to be in a great relationship, "I'm sorry that it took so long to write this song, but I gave up / You see, one million words can't describe how it feels to know your love."

By the fourth song the album has slowed down again but when a song is well written, with catchy melodies, perfect harmonies, and intelligent lyrics, speed doesn't matter. Each song is simply beautiful, and though many of them could be very radio-friendly, this is not the sort of radio-punk you'd hear from Sum41 or Simple Plan. It's more reminiscent of the honest songwriting from the days when it was a well respected artform rather than a commercial marketing tool.

A surprise treat on this record is their cover of Sinead O'Connor's "This Is A Rebel Song" featuring Karina Denike. On first listen I was annoyed, as I strongly disliked the boy/girl duet they had on their last album, but after a few more times through it's one of my favorite tracks.

As I have been known to say before, this is an album that should be appreciated by all fans of music, whether you like pop, rock, punk, or any other genre. And if you're already a fan of No Use, I'd say if you liked More Betterness you will definitely love this album.

A-