Monday, April 12, 2010

Descendents - All (1987)


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I managed to get a copy of I Don’t Want To Gwo Up a few years ago. After a few listens, I was disappointed. I thought it didn’t have the pop brilliance that Milo Goes To College does. NeedIess to say, I refused to listen to Descendents post-Milo Goes To College material thinking they would suck.

Right before I left Australia for good, my buddy Rob gave me a copy of Descendents All which I didn’t listen to until about 2 weeks ago. And let’s just say I will be the first one to admit that Descendents made at least two good albums in the 80’s, All being one of them.

The first noticeable difference between All and their previous releases is the obvious hard rock/early metal influence. Songs like “Schizophrenia” and “Uranus” even shows a leaning towards prog-rock with its atypical song structure, tricky rhythms, and impressive musical chops. Fear not, elements of good ol’ Descendents still present on this album. With songs like “Clean Sheets” and “ALL-o-gistics”, you know these guys haven’t lost their sense of humor. “Coolidge” and “Pep Talk” in my opinion ranks up there among their best and is about as catchy as any songs off Milo Goes To College.

All shows a musical adventure of the band and experimentation to some degree. Some would even say it was a rather natural progression of the band, having a new guitarist and bassist on the board. Well whatever it was, I personally think it was a successful one. If you thought that pop-punk and hard rock/metal don’t mix, listen to this.

Fun fact : this was Descendents last album with Milo before he left to study biochemistry.

1 comment:

  1. I don't think you know what you're talking about, I Don't Want to Grow Up is amazing, especially the second half of the album.

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