realemopolice's profile

I never thought that the word "experimental" could be used to describe a ska punk album, but I was wrong. "Somewhere in the Between" by Jersey boys from Streetlight Manifesto is an experimental ska punk album.

It's just different from what you expect from a regular album on this particular genre. Of course, the songs are happy, fast paced, filled with punk drumming and the characteristic horns, but it flerts with other kinds of music, like traditional spanish music in tracks like "Forty Days" and gypsy music influenced sounds in "We Will Fall Together".

The only two problems I struggled in this great album was the duration of the songs and the outros. "One Foot On the Gas, One Foot In the Grave" lasts for almost five and a half minutes and that's just HUGE for punk rock. Don't get me wrong, I like long songs, but not when most of the time is filled with horn solos, not that this is bad, but it is still strange to me when it comes to a ska punk album. This also comes to the problem with the outros, the intrumental parts in the end of most of the songs. It is, again huge. Some of them lasts for more than a minute and that kinda ruins the whole song for me.

Besides those two things, it is a great album, and if it wasn't for these problems, I would probably give it a 100 rating, but, I can't, so 95.

"So Long..." starts off with full blasting punk rock songs, all of them shorter than the tunes on "Punk in Drublic" and "Heavy Petting Zoo". They are not as fast and melodic, but there's something in the lyrics and in the sound that reminds me of punk classics like The Ramones and The Stooges, but it's more polished than that.

The drums have some new sounds rather than the characteristic beat used in 90% of every Nofx song. "Champs Elysées" is a good example of that. The guitars, as always, are great and we can listen to lots of great riffs, although they are not that complex than the riffs in the next albums like "The War on Errorism", but it's a great start.

As a bass enthusiast, I noticied that Fat Mike really put some effort to this. It's the first Nofx album that the bass lines are pretty great and they are more independent from the drum beat.

Another great feature of the album is the ska influence being more active than in the past two albums, presenting great ska-like tracks like "All Outta Angst" and "Eat the Meek".

It's a great Nofx album, not as great as Punk in Drublic, but still a great album filled with amazing tracks.