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.
Epitaph Records – 31 Jan 1996
Did NOFX follow up their biggest album a bit too soon?
If the (officially) unreleased documentary One Nine Nine Four is to be believed, 1994 is the year that punk broke big. I’d agree with that. Green Day‘s major label-debut Dookie brought punk into mainstream and a boatload of bands rode that wave to some of their biggest releases ever. NOFX got a piece of that pie with what, if I recall correctly, is still their best-selling release ever in Punk In Drublic, which was released in the summer of ’94. Like them or not, one would be hard-pressed to argue against Punk In Drublic being one of the more important albums in the history of punk, and it is still well-received to this day. By most metrics, both financially and by relevance it’s a hit.
At the time, like most bands at or around their age, NOFX was very productive, so we didn’t have to wait too long for a new album, and thus Heavy Petting Zoo (alternatively titled Eating Lamb for the vinyl LP) dropped in January of 1996. True to its name, the album dips heavily into puerile humor to both its benefit but, at points, to its detriment as well.
“Hobophobic (Scared of Bums)” launches the album, and it’s the kind of tongue-in-cheek snark that works partly because the lyrics are a kick, it’s just super-duper fast, and it is fun. Immediately though, you’ll notice something sounds off with the sound. We’ll get to that later, though.
“Philthy Phil Philanthropist” jumps in quickly to NOFX’s regular dabbling in ska sounds, but also features the overly loud and poorly added “BLEH!” from Fat Mike that sounds like it is going to far into showing the world that “WE ARE PUNK!” I know NOFX has officially eschewed trendiness for trendiness’ sake, but this one little thing smelled too much likem catering to an audience who wanted their punk snotty.
Songs like “Bleeding Heart Disease” and “What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” do a well-enough job of being melodic punk. On the flipside, “Freedom Like a Shopping Cart” and “Release the Hostages” maybe try a bit too hard to be “serious,” but just came off as only partly memorable with the latter.
“Hot Dog in a Hallway” is fun and funny in a juvenile sense, and still holds up to this day, if maybe just for the “It’s like feeding a Tic-Tac to a whale” line. “Love Story” may be the most adventurous song of the album in terms of being outside of NOFX’s normal bag of tricks but, surprisingly, the first part plays a lot better than the ho-hum punk breakdown it finishes off with.
“Whatever Didi Wants” is a banger.
While Fat Mike admittedly fucks up taking the piss out of Grateful Dead fans by celebrating Jerry Garcia’s death with “August 8th” (he actually died on August 9th), and this is another example of maybe NOFX trying a bit too hard to be “punk” by going the incredibly pedestrian route of thumbing their nose at Deadheads. Funnier than the song is that it should be easy for a punker to mock The Dead, and somehow they messed that up.
The lyrics to album closer “Drop the World” have a lot of depth, but the song itself… well, it doesn’t disappoint, but it also doesn’t stand out like an album closer should, either.
So now that we’ve gone over a majority of the songs, what is it about the album that make it seem like a bit of a sore thumb, without sticking out?
I believe it rests on a couple of things, the first of which is that the album feels a bit like some of the songs are rushed filler because NOFX maybe (?) felt pressure to release an album while the iron was hot? After the sheer energy of Punk In Drublic some of the songs here sound phoned in (both figuratively and literally). Did we really need to find out what Liza has been up to with “Liza,” and why does the song just sound like such a drag? (for my part, it is one of the few instances with NOFX where the flow and cadence of the lyrics just don’t seem to match the music).
The second part is that the album has always sounded… off. Something with the recording/production/engineering ended up with an album that seems like it is trying to be a wall of sound, but also comes across as so distressingly flat and dry. It’s a bit better at the louder parts, but the calm and quiet parts highlight how poor it sounds. Now, one can argue that punk albums should sound raw, and I would agree with that. But there is also an argument for recording with a decent budget and ending up with something that sounds like it should sound a lot better, but just doesn’t.
25 years later (holy shit!) Heavy Petting Zoo comes off as more like a placeholder in between Punk In Drublic and (in my opinion their best album front to back) So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes. Out of their five studio albums released in the ’90s, this is the only one that I really can’t sing front-to-back in my head from memory. Listening to it again for the anniversary, I totally forgot some of the songs on this even existed (“Freedom Like a Shopping Cart,” “The Black and White”). That’s not entirely a bad thing, since many bands struggle to put together a whole album of great songs, and we all know NOFX is (or was at the time) nothing if not prodigious in recording content. It just seems like this album may have been pushed to come out before it was fully baked and ready.
the white drew carey (aka – Jeff Sorley) is the founder and head editor of TGEFM. He’s lived (outside of) Chicago, Madison WI, (ugh) Penn State, Lyon FR, Oxford UK, central New Jersey, and now within earshot of SFO in the Bay Area. When not scouring the web for more great bands and labels to post about, he also spends time drawing (mostly) silly sci-fi and anime stuff under the name Asplenia Studios.
