Fat Wreck Chords – July 31, 2020
The brawler vs the prizefighter
NOFX does not NEED Frank Turner to help them sell records. Frank Turner does not NEED NOFX to help his album sales. West Coast Vs Wessex is a split that is more designed for fans than for the bands.
Split albums have almost always been vessels for artists without massive followings to combine fanbases or, in rare cases, for one up and comer to piggyback on the success of more experienced acts. That is not what we are getting on this Fat Wreck Chords collaboration.
West Coast Vs Wessex is exactly what the title and cover suggests, a musical boxing match where the irreverence of NOFX tackles the heaviness of Frank Turner. If the value of a cover is in its ability to both hold the original in high esteem while making it your own, Fat Wreck has spun gold on this one.
This split opens with five tracks where NOFX takes the piss out of Turner’s ballads while being clearly evident that they are both familiar with and fans of the folk-punk flag bearer.
On the opener, Fat Mike rearranges a few words in the final verse on “Substitute” to force his trademark obsession with bondage into the track and transforms Turner’s recollections of love lost into the sort of sophomoric punk NOFX is known for. On their take of “Worse Things Happen at Sea” NOFX honors the sullenness of the song but there is no mistaking Eric Melvin and his “Ooohs” and “Aaahs” as being entirely NOFX throughout the chorus. On their cover of “Glory Hallelujah” NOFX have never sounded so somber as they do in the opening verse. That quickly changes though as they get a revolving door of vocalists to tackle Turner’s atheistic hymn. The snotty style they are known for kicks in with the force and surprise of a Bible falling from a cathedral ceiling.
Lyrically and vocally, Turner is the George Carlin to NOFX’s Carrot Top; deeper, more thoughtful and less in our face. For that reason his takes on NOFX held higher intrigue and higher risk for me. It would have been easy for Turner covering NOFX to come off like Daniel Day Lewis doing a one-man show of Road House.
Luckily that is not what we get here. When Turner takes the slow-strummed “Scavenger Type” and speeds it up to the point that it somehow sounds more akin to the “Fat sound” than when performed by the head of the label, the listener quickly realizes Turner is getting ambitious with his tribute. When he busts out the harmonica on his slowed down rendition of “Bob,” the ambition becomes uninhibited. “Falling in Love” closes out the album and Turner has somehow managed to take Fat Mike’s lyrics and turn them into the sort of isolating and esoteric song you’d expect to close out a David Lynch film.
The way NOFX’s cover of the Rancid song “Radio” on 2002’s BYO Split Series became a staple of their live shows, I think it would be easy to find Turner performing “Bob” or NOFX’s take on “Worse Things Happen at Sea” on the set list if bands are ever allowed to take a stage again.
There will certainly be fans complaining that Fat Mike’s voice can’t handle Turner’s depth or range and NOFX purists will without a doubt be up in arms over this LP, but for casual fans of either, West Coast Vs Wessex is enjoyable, impressive and impassioned.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
