V/A – Everybody Loves Antiseen / 2006 TKO / 57 Tracks / http://www.tkorecords.com / Reviewed 01 October 2006

Even though I was able to review “Badwill Ambassadors”, tI still feel as if I missed out on the formative years of Antiseen. Obviously, enough bands wanted to sign up for this tribute set that TKO needed to do two discs, so perhaps why the band is so vital will reveal itself to me after hearing these covers. Bands both big and small play tracks on this disc, acts you’ve heard of that are playing here include Rancid Vat, Hank Williams III, Zeke, and Chaos U.K. The actual discs begin with Limecell’s “Kill The Business”. This crunchy, over-distorted track has enough grime and dirt on it to properly carry the spirit of Antiseen, while having enough energy to make the track purely one of the current ages.

Hank III’s version of “Baby, Get Back To The Hills” is a country track (surprise, surprise), while adding in more than a fair share of Tiger Army bass to the mix. The energy of Antiseen is kept sacrosanct on this set as most of the tracks are kept below two minutes. I understand this is supposed to be a compilation that honors Antiseen, but where is the contact information for all the bands on the set? I know that there quite a few solid tracks by bands that I am not familiar with, and there is little way that TKO provides on this disc to get in touch with them. Unlike a number of other punk compilations, there seems to be a professional recording throughout.

This means that there is actually some cohesion beyond all of the tracks being Antiseen songs. Bumpin Uglies’ “Self-Induced Lobotomy” is an early gem for the compilation, as it has a call and response type of chorus that has not been heard with so much raw energy since the days of The Ramones. While a number of tracks pretty much follow Antiseen’s general approach to a t, there are some noticeable breaks with the Antiseen sound. This is the case during Volatile Baby’s ”Wifebeater”, which turns Antiseen’s original into something that blends together traditional European music with goth. Dark Ryders come up with a B-52s meets Chris Isaak with their version of “Weight of the World”; with “Everybody Loves Antiseen”, there is over two hours of covers of one of the best examples of outlaw punk that can be found – Antiseen. Pick it up if you want to hear new bands, or old songs done in a completely different way.

Top Tracks: The Nerds / Walking Dead , Clamp / Nothing’s Cool

Rating: 6.3/10

[JMcQ]