This review is part of a series looking back at significant albums on their anniversaries. Through the benefit of hindsight we will be viewing the album not just as it was released, but how it stands the test of time, as well as its place in the band’s discography and the genre in general.
Fat Wreck Chords – 18 April 2006
The end of an era
It’s been fifteen years since the release of NOFX’s Wolves In Wolves Clothing and in retrospect the album really marks the end of an era for the band. This was intimated in my anniversary review of Ribbed, but NOFX anywhere from Ribbed to The War On Errorism is pretty great. Every fan of the band probably has a favorite album from this era and an album they think is the worst, but this is certainly when the band is their most biting and their most creative. Wolves In Wolves Clothing is the transition album, bringing the band from a dominant and vital force in the punk scene, to a band that just kind of keeps releasing the same music and leaning into their humor.
With all that in mind, Wolves In Wolves Clothing really has elements from both eras of NOFX. There are some great songs that should remind you of why NOFX is as famous and important as they are. “Leaving Jesusland,” “Seeing Double At The Triple Rock,” and the title track are all amazing. The songwriting is tight, the lyrics are great, and I feel like the band is toeing this great line between showing off how proficient they are as players, and just playing great pop-punk songs.
But then we get songs like “Getting High On The Down Low” which is a great case study in how NOFX has taken such a big turn in the past 15 years. It has this guitar riff they lifted from The Kinks – it’s meant to be a reference but they don’t actually do anything with it. The song could be really fun and clever but it just kind of peters out. It feels half baked and its mostly just a vehicle for Mike to use the phrase “getting high on the down low.” Which brings me to the three things that NOFX become really concerned with after Wolves. (They were actually always concerned with these but it became more pronounced after 2006):
1) Wordplay – often at the expense of the music. Mike has always been good at turning a phrase, but after Wolves the wordplay becomes a primary focus, and it gets lazier, too. Whatever cleverness there was in “Cool And Unusual Punishment” ends in the title.
2) Referring to alcohol, drugs, sex, and / or other famous punks ad nauseam. Write about what you like but at a certain point another NOFX song about being drunk (etc etc etc) is not terribly interesting. But then again I play in a band where all the songs are about a fake city and put out a single explaining how to put your trash out for pickup, so who am I to judge?
3) Humor above the music. I saw NOFX in the middle of the Wolves tour and remember thinking about how I just wanted them to… play some songs and stop talking. I understand that part of their branding is that they have this intentionally offensive sense of humor, but it gets boring after a while. In the 90’s they had a better sense of using humor to make a point, but as their career has progressed it’s hard to see what the point is other than trying to offend folks.
All this is to say that I don’t think Wolves is a bad album. A lot of fans really consider it a companion piece to War On Errorism and I think it works quite well. My larger point is that whether you like them or not, NOFX after Wolves is a very different band. They go from registering voters to rock against Bush to curating craft beer festivals and leaning into their ill-advised jokes about Las Vegas. The seeds of what this band becomes are really planted in Wolves In Wolves Clothing.
Musician and writer – I play in Cheap City and run Dollhouse Lightning
