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.
26 Mar 1991 – Epitaph Records
NOFX starts to find their footing
I have a love/hate relationship with NOFX – I guess a lot of people do*. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about their place in the history of our subculture, and their importance is undeniable. Any punk band today has to reckon at least a little bit with NOFX’s massive influence and discography. Across their fourteen albums they’ve established a sound that blends hardcore, pop punk, ska, and whatever else they feel like experimenting with into something that’s cohesive and fun. Their musicianship is great and they’re also not afraid to get a little strange: The Decline (the one song, 18 minute EP) is one of their best releases. NOFX is also a really cool band outside of just their music: Registering voters at concerts during the Bush years with the Punk Voter Campaign, and making the decision to move to their own label from Epitaph at the height of their popularity is a really bold move. I’ve felt generally not too excited about their material post 2006 or so but, for me, everything released in the 90’s up to 2003’s War On Errorism holds up. The first album in that group is Ribbed, released on this day in 1991.
Ribbed is the album that really establishes the tropes that tend to bind every subsequent release: There’s a lot of jokes about sex (maybe too many), there’s at least one ska song, a quick reference to Douglas Adams… Bad Religion had taught the band how to sing harmonies, but it was going to be a few more records until they get really good at it. Fat Mike has said that Ribbed is the record where they started to find their sound, and he’s right. On the previous two albums Liberal Animation and S+M Airlines the band was still struggling to walk the line between hardcore, metal, and pop punk. They’re not great, and only really worth listening to if you want to get a picture of how this band has developed. Ribbed is when NOFX starts to up their musicianship – they got even better once El Hefe joined the band for the next album White Trash, Two Heebs, and a Bean.
There are some great songs on this record but it really gets bogged down by its humor, which is a problem that a lot of NOFX records struggle with, but Ribbed is particularly unbalanced. “Green Corn” is one of my favorite songs by the band in general, but it’s immediately followed by “The Moron Brothers” and “Showerdays.” They’re both fine songs but they’re so heavily focused on being silly that the intensity of the record that they established with “Green Corn” has already been lost. “Food Sex & Ewe” is kind of a cute song but Mike hadn’t totally figured out how to sing the way he wants to yet – he had the same problem on the later track “Nowhere.” “Cheese / Where’s My Slice?” is one of the tracks that really sounds like the NOFX we get to hear on future albums. It’s fast and catchy and the lyrics are well written. But this is followed by “Together On The Sand” which is just a quick joke song that doesn’t leave much of an impression.
30 years down the line Ribbed sort of holds up. There are some great songs on it but it’s still a record where the band is really finding their sound and they haven’t totally figured out the best way to blend their (for lack of a better description) “serious” songs with their “joke” songs. It’s an album I revisit occasionally and I’m never disappointed but always end up listening to Punk In Drublic or Heavy Petting Zoo afterwards. If you haven’t, make sure to listen to their recent release of Ribbed – Live In A Dive, which features the band playing the entire album live in 2012. Hearing the band play the album with two decades of experience is great and shouldn’t be missed.
*We don’t have to go too deep into the Las Vegas thing but I’ll just say it was in poor taste, and even worse taste to double down on their comments instead of apologizing and calling it a day.
Musician and writer – I play in Cheap City and run Dollhouse Lightning
