Review: NOFX – “DOUBLE ALBUM” (updated)

Fat Wreck Chords – 02 Dec 2022

(Update 02 Dec 2022 – astute TGEFM reader Tye points to a SPIN interview where Fat Mike says they DO have one more album in the works. I’m going to leave this review as-is though, because I didn’t know that at the time. I don’t read SPIN)

These veteran punks are nothing if not reliable (in their swan song?)

NOFX is officially calling it quits next year. At least, they say so, but I’m still not entirely sure this isn’t part of some elaborate ruse (would you put it past them?). This brings us to their newest and, potentially final, studio LP DOUBLE ALBUM. I say potentially because they also haven’t really said that’s what it is. And if this is actually their swan song, at least they went out on a… reliable… note?

To begin, yes DOUBLE ALBUM follows up 2021’s SINGLE ALBUM and no, it is neither an actual double album, nor a continuation of the previous. It all lies in the gag of the names.

Why do I keep using the word “reliable”, though? Well, it’s not that the songs on this album are “bad”, as much as they are songs that can get a NOFX fan to tap their foot, and listen to a few times. Sure, there are a few stand-out tracks, but there’s not really any stand out tracks, if you catch my drift. No “The Bag”, no “The Brews”, no “Idiots are Taking Over”. What we have are ten NOFX tracks that run from fun to passable.

Pre-release single “Darby Crashing Your Party” launches us off with a fuzzy but recognizable Fat Mike bass line leading into a recognizable NOFX song set apart mostly by the lyrics. If the song has a fault, and this is present throughout most of the album but is terribly prevalent here, it’s that the guitars are awfully quiet and hollow (more on that later). That track is followed up by “My Favorite Enemy” which carries on Fat Mike’s penchant for self-deprecation. it’s got a nice fast melodic punk beat that’s part and parcel with the NOFX sound.

(some minor album spoilers below, if you don’t wanna know, skip down to the next paragraph)

The next two tracks are the best of the bunch in terms of content and composition, as well as how they get delivered to your earholes. “Don’t Count on Me” is exactly what it says. All of the damn good reasons not to make Fat Mike (or Melvin even?) the first person to reach out to when you’re in need (unless, of course, that need is for anything that will make your life objectively worse… as the song progresses it appears they’re ready to help you sink your own ship at the drop of a hat). I like this song a lot for a lot of reasons: Melvin gets to take some extended vocals and really anchors it with Fatty backing him up, it’s funny, it’s catchy. Plus when you think the song is done, they pull you back in with an extended reggae portion where El Hefe gets to throw in his two cents. Fat Mike finishes it out and, if you’re not paying attention to the transition, you wouldn’t notice that the extended reggae sequence continues directly into the next track “Johanna Constant Teen”. This bit of of aural trickery moves through half of the short 1m30s song then, of course, blasts off in a fast melodic punk back half. Between the three sections of these two songs, you get to hear the band play mid-tempo punk, some reggae, and then some fast-tempo punk– three things that they know how to do well.

(spoiler done)

Further down is another autobiographical number “Fuck Day Six”. The title and body of the song reference the average timeline of opiate rehab, during which day six is typically the day withdrawal symptoms peak and what you thought was smooth sailing turns into hell. Serious subject matter, but presented with lyrics that can still evoke a giggle, all built on a classic NOFX composition.

“Is it Too Soon if Time is Relative” sees our narrator wishing that they can skate by life like that “lazy” Stephen Hawking guy. It plays off as a fun little ditty in a rock ‘n roll kinda way. Fat Mike has admitted that he wrote the song while the renowned physicist was still alive and, I figure, why would NOFX throw away a song just because it’s subject matter has been freed from this mortal coil? If anything, it shows that NOFX can still make a lowbrow punk song better than most. “Alcopollack” once again sees Melvin with a hefty vocal presence as he and Fat Mike duet throughout the song, which is about Destiny Tour Booking founder David Pollack and, well.. to be nice, let’s say the song regales us with some of Pollack’s more particular quirks.

The album ends on “Gone with the Heroined” and, for the third time, Melvin takes the lead on vocals. The song itself is fairly straight-forward and not much to write home about. Punk song for 2/3s, then a slowly descending musical outro for the last minute or so, finishing off as the drums fade into the distance. And then that’s it.

Of note on that last song is that, to my ear, it sounds the fullest of the bunch. Remember when I mentioned my misgivings about how the guitars are presented? Well, they’re a bit uneven throughout. I don’t like how the bass, drums and, particularly Fatty’s vocals tend to overwhelm the guitars as it is. Within that criticism, some songs have a bit fuller guitar presence, some less. This is exacerbated by NOFX’s usual penchant to mostly isolate one guitar on the right channel, and the other on the left, so in this case when one goes quiet you are left with even more emptiness than before. When we get to “Gone…” though, it sounds like they’ve added a bit more body to the guitars, and also brought down the vocals a tad more in line with the instruments. It makes for more robust track. I don’t know about you, but I think NOFX sounds best with a full-bodied sound, and this album doesn’t really have a lot of that.

So what does DOUBLE ALBUM do for us? At best I can say it is a collection of NOFX songs. Tried and true, for sure, but it doesn’t hold a candle to their breakout Punk in Drublic, nor (in my opinion) their best (and best sounding) album So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes and (checks watch) it’s been 25+ years since those two.

But that’s just been the thing for NOFX since, at least, the last decade or so: they’ve been reliable at worst and, yes, at times stellar (“We Got Two Jealous Agains” from 2003’s The War on Errorism getting a callback with “I Got One Jealous Again, Again” in 2012’s Self-Entitled is one of my favorite NOFX moments across time). But, whether you like it or not, a lot of their songs have fallen into a pattern of “Fat Mike biography and/or memoir” (sorry to say but he’s tricksy enough that I don’t consider him a reliable narrator), or tributes to friends or colleagues in the scene/name-dropping. If you still like NOFX you’re probably going to like these songs. But looking back (or, listening back, really) to previous albums, especially the heady days of the mid-90s to mid-00s, with this album the songs don’t have the sense of urgency that really boosted their mid-career material.

So I come back around to the statement DOUBLE ALBUM is a reliable album. I think the best parts are the one-two punch of “Don’t Count On Me”/”Johanna Constant Teen” along with the heartfelt, and delivered the way that only NOFX can “Fuck Day Six”. The rest isn’t filler, per se, but what we’ve all come to recognize as the usual fare from the band lately– those autobiographical/memoir-type songs– and a knack for storytelling through verse and music. What I’d mostly take away from this album, aside from the music, is that they’ve earned the right to just do what they want to do and enjoy themselves. I’ve come away mostly happy with DOUBLE RECORD and, if not blown away by the whole thing, at least really digging some of it.

If this is NOFX’s final album, I’ll say “so long and thanks for all the albums!”

But if it isn’t…. I truly wonder what they’ve got up their sleeves next.