NO USE FOR A NAME – All The Best Songs (Fat Wreck Chords)
Original release date: July 10th, 2007
No Use For A Name are the very model of a Fat Wreck Chords band: their style is that quintessential mid-90s skate-punk sound, mixing brash melodic guitars with fast drums and slightly nasal vocals.
Of course, there’s probably half a dozen other bands you could say exactly the same thing about, but none of them released this 26-track best-of compilation. Despite this collection featuring four different lead guitarists and two different bassists, there’s a definite consistency to the selection (drawing from five Fat Wreck studio albums and one EP but ignoring their 2001 live record and first two independent albums) that ensures uniformity despite the non-chronological order. It rarely gets as good as the cracker single Soulmate, but punchy Justified Black Eye sets a more achievable benchmark, and there are also guest appearances from Dance Hall Crashers’ Karina Denike (On The Outside) and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ Dicky Barrett (Growing Down).
If you kept reading past the first sentence of this review and don’t have any NUFAN albums, this overview will set you right; if you already have their albums, you’ll want to borrow this from a friend for the two unreleased tracks (History Defeats and Stunt Double), maybe the compilation rarity Coming Too Close, and the accompanying booklet packed with photos, posters, and reminisces from relatives, crew and past and present members, including (often apocryphal) stories about each song.
Owen Heitmann