Descendents – Cool To Be You

Everything about this is a great album. From the high energy tracks to the simple cover. They did this one right,

Review I wrote in 2004 for my website punkupdates.com when this was released:

What more can I say than what I already wrote in my review of last month’s EP? Not much really; this full-length succeeds in fulfilling my highest expectations, which usually means it would have a handicapped start. The fear and doubts that arose when I saw All play a set of seemingly too complicated songs live a couple years ago at the Deconstruction Tour in Tilburg, can be buried deep again as this album is filled with nice flowing power punksongs all through the album.

Milo’s potent voice really rules more than ever, with even more melodicy than before! Karl Alvarez’ dazzling bass-riffs and the authentic Eggerton guitarpieces rock and sweap as they have done for 2 decades. In my opinion this album might even be more accessible than their 7 year old last album “Everything Sucks” as none of these songs really has its wilder pieces and there’s no full-throttle shorties. The astonishing thing to me is that although the sound is undeniably much the same as that previous album, none of these songs really sound as a copy. Be it the twist in voice, the brand new bassriff, the little stop in a song or a guitarsolo, there’s also something new to enjoy, at least that’s how I experience this album. Non-believers will notice little difference I suppose.

‘Merican is still my favorite song, but it still remains a political odd one out in their repertoire as most of these lyrics again deal with either funny stuff (“Blast Off” is a song about flatulence), love-situations or the slightly sarcastic self-pitying attitude and aim for living someone else’s life (“Cool To Be You” and “Tack”). Isn’t it a relief to find a band that doesn’t talk in riddles again? I know I’m complaining about this so often, but damn why do bands make it so difficult to their fans to sing about something. At least here I know what the song is all about, even if it doesn’t have the good message.

Playing powerful pop-punk is easy shit, we’ve got thousands of bands these days as a proof. But creating an easy-sounding melodic punkalbum with balls that will have you sing along is reserved for only a few in this empire. Descendents are still the emperors! I don’t think I’ll end the year with a headache deciding which will be my number 1 release for 2004 (although we still have Bad Religion coming up). Anyway, goddammit, this is MY music.

14 technical pop-punk songs. Just amazing!
Best Song: 'Merican