Artist: Minor Decline

Artist: Minor Decline

Links: https://www.facebook.com/minordeclinepunk

http://minordecline.bandcamp.com/

With album art reminiscent of Chixdiggit!, Minor Decline is just as poppy; and even with songs proclaiming the world has gone to shit (in a song called "Puke Parade"), MD is no less likeable. But it is NOFX who systematized the punk ethics that are followed today with great success by bands like Minor Decline: While punk bands are to call out social injustice wherever they find it (as MD does with financial scandal on "Bank Robbery" and broken presidential promises on "Days of the Weak"), they can never lose their sense of humor, which serves to avoid the appearance of self-righteousness.

Minor Decline flexes this funny bone throughout The Front Nine. A song title like "IFYM" can't have prepared you for a revenge fantasy that has the narrator boasting, "I Fucked Your Mom." And Minor Decline pokes fun at no-taste Americans and all Canadians (including Chixdiggit!) on "Redneck Americans": "I have pointy toe boots / I wear blue jean suits / But I'm not Canadian / I'm fuckin' redneck American." (And does the album contain a sample of Romney touting McCain/Palin back in '08, and also promising not to make shit up on TV? Hilarious.)

NOFX also mandated short/varied/catchy song parts to accommodate listener ADHD, as well as the employment of skilled instrumentalists across the board. In this regard, Minor Decline executes punk with pop precision, expertly building diverse song parts around punk, ska, oi-like chants, and even doo-wop. (And thankfully, they also avoid boring song endings like the plague.) Examples of MD's instrumental expertise abound: the lead guitar's snake-y riffs on "The Front Nine"; the band's solid rhythm section on "Huff, Puff, Heave"; and the bassist on pretty much every song. It's also a huge part of Minor Decline's appeal that Jake Thomas conjures the character and credibility of Fat Mike's vocal.

The standout track has to be "Bank Robbery." A chubby bass intro sets up a vocal reveal that has the Securities and Exchange Commission watching fuck-tapes instead of Wall Street -- "you're getting laid while America got fucked"; "they fuck our economy annually"; "slap the SEC." It's yet another showcase for the band's skillful song-writing, including a melodic guitar/bass bridge (at 1:51) that is merely a prelude to song-ending "shoo-be-doo-wop" -- and gosh that bass is good.

Let it be said that Minor Decline has what it takes to knock your dick off. And they do it early and often on The Front Nine.

*** The author of this review, Peter Campbell, plays the supertumba for the following band: http://youtu.be/tMS73-1kCr8