For me, when you talk about punk music, there is one standard that all others are held up to: Bad Religion. Greg, Brett and Co. have always written songs that are simultaneously literate, melodic, and ass-kickingly fast and crunchy.
The Descendents new album Everything Sucks holds up well to that kind of scrutiny. It's a crazy amount of fun, it's heavy as hell, and it's filled with inventive melodies that you might not expect from a punk band.
In recent years, punkers have taken the Green Day formula and written tons of songs that are indeed catchy, but formulaic; I suspect that there is a computer program somewhere that writes songs for these bands. But Everything Sucks, the opening track, took me completely by surprise with its unusual timing of the chorus and non-standard beat. That tendency towards the high road continues throughout the rest of the album.
Especially notable is legendary vocalist Milo Aukerman, whose voice is great and perfectly matched to the material (even if it does sound a bit like Greg Graffin at times. Hey, who doesn't?).
I'm particularly fond of "Coffee Mug", a song that has two full verses, two full choruses, and an outro. What's the big deal about that? It's thirty-four seconds long. This isn't music to go to sleep to - it's music to jump around and act like a damn weirdo to. I love it.
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