EUGENE, Ore. — Arthur “Sweaty” Grant, a punk physical education teacher at Churchill High School, expressed that incoming freshman student Jaime Peron has what it takes to be an all-state champion “weird kid who’s always smoking under the bleachers,” sources say.
“Eugene is known for bullshit events like track and field,” said Coach Grant while giving the finger to a group of more popular teachers. “But I think Jaime could really be competitive in smoking a shitty hand-rolled joint under the stands while all the other schools are cheering for some dumbass sport like lacrosse. When I saw how that kid handles furtively hitting his vape behind the school between classes, I knew Jaime had the goods. He’s the kind of smoker you only see once, twice in your career as a guy who yells at slow students.”
Jaime Peron had more mixed feelings about being handpicked by Coach Grant.
“Coach is always telling me I could go the distance when it comes to doing drugs just outside the vision of adults,” said Peron. “That I need to focus on my technical skills, like holding the joint behind my back when the janitor comes by, and ditch all my loser friends who don’t stand a chance of making the varsity smoking team because they have supportive parents. I don’t know, though, I don’t know if I want to become one of those jocks whose whole life is making the smoking regionals. It might be kind of lame to peak in high school like that.”
Churchill High School Assistant Principal Gareth Kestrel is cautiously optimistic about Peron’s prospects.
“Arthur has some unconventional methods when it comes to encouraging students,” said Kestrel. “And I’m not even sure that smoking under the bleachers is a state-approved athletic competition category. That said, that Peron kid can put away a blunt during a pep rally like no one’s business, and it would be nice to show those fucking snobs over at South [Eugene High School] who’s boss in this town for once.”
As of press time, Peron had fractured his dominant smoking hand during drills and is currently being pursued by the robot-assisted chess team.
We suppose that there is a reason why this album is really hard to find. Rough and youthful in many endearing ways, 2005’s “It’s Our Time” is likely your most revered or second favorite FYS album listed here because you’re as punk as punk can be, but it’s objectively and subjectively the band’s worst LP. Sorry, but we’re not here to put you on. Released on Open Your Eyes Records, “It’s Our Time” came out during the TRL days of Warped Tour bands and unintentionally or intentionally foreshadowed a bright visual and aural future for Four Year Strong. To put it simply for you toads, the band got better with age, as most bands do unless they don’t, and the following albums below overshadow this one. Maybe it was just easier to wait and see. To quote the title/tagline to MTV’s “Next,” which also came out in 2005, “Next!”
Before we get deep into this beyond-polarizing 2011 LP, we want to say on record that it isn’t half as bad as a large peanut gallery of fairweather Four Year Strong fans said that it was, and their song that should’ve been a single “Stuck In The Middle” remains one of FYS’s best tunes. Also, tracks one through four foreshadowed a potentially excellent LP, and honestly could’ve been a perfect EP in a similar league to 2014’s return-to-form romp amongst romps known as “Go Down in History,” but sadly the remaining songs are quite disjointed/ inconsistent, thus killing this album’s overall forty-plus minute flow. Some called the band Foo Year Strong after this studio album, which was their fifth, but some people are stupid, and “some” means “one or more”… Brassy? Yes, but the bold survive!
The aughts band went into full ’90s mode with eleven punk rock covers of classic ’90s rock songs from obscure bands like Everclear and Nirvana. “Explain It All” tied FYS listeners over till their 2010 major label debut which is ranked in a medal position, and came out just under nine months after this cover LP which is succinct and sensual. This album is also the band’s last on Rob Hitt of Midtown’s I Surrender Records before signing with Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy’s Decaydance Records as a subsidiary to Universal Motown Records. To quote a title of a Less Than Jake song, “Motown never sounded so good.”
We won’t be forced to eat our words on this: 2015’s self-titled effort certainly satisfied old fans who may have departed as such for their prior full-length for non-justifiable reasons. Another point of note is that the band’s publicly most streamed Spotify song by FAR, but not the Sacramento band Far, is track two, Modest Mouse’s “We All Float Down Here.” In addition to its lengthy song titles, many of which come from popular movies like “Boogie Nights,” “Rush Hour,” and not “The Bonfire of the Vanities” featuring Beth Broderick from Melissa Joan Hart’s other show, the band showcased an insane energy not heard since their sophomore album. Plus, the album cover looks like a Phish fan’s stoner dream and a Minor Threat fan’s straight edge nightmare.
It’s really, really cool, and it’s extremely, extremely rare for a band with a catalog as expansive as Four Year Strong’s to almost peak creatively with their most recent effort, but “Brain Pain” is their finest hour since the album that came out almost exactly ten years prior. Because of such and so, so much more, we are not including any “skip it” tracks here and onward. Yeah. You all should close your dirty mouths unless you’re taking your crazy pills. Anyway, the band clearly took a lot of time composing songs for this album, as evidenced by the longest gap between LP releases of FYS’s career. Also, producer Will Putney from the slightly less heavy band with a nursery school-friendly name known as Fit for an Autopsy brought out a heavy, heavy and melodic, melodic side to the band that hadn’t been showcased before.
We know you want this album should be number one. And we know you think we’re always wrong about the placement of these ranking entries, but we aren’t. Do we deserve a beatdown in the key of sadness and unquenchable anger from a maniac’s pipe? Probably. Do we make these lists intentionally to offend? We’ll never tell. Back to 2007’s breakout FYS full-length: “Rise or Die Trying” will forever hang in the Agnostic pantheon of Warped Tour band’s LPs, and certainly introduced the band to an audience larger than its aforementioned debut album “Time & Space” did. Lastly, FYS excels at pinch harmonics…
Former keyboardist Josh Lyford (also a BMX ripper) went out in style via the band’s supremely supreme fourth studio album “Enemy of the World”. Lyford exited the group one year and one month after this album hit record stores… Remember those? Anyway, the band’s major label debut is a perfect listen from top to bottom, and the band even re-recorded it recently, showing that they know what they did, and that they are not sorry for it. Featuring four singles, all of which should’ve been hits, “Enemy of the World” answers the inferior publication’s infamous quote in the late-00s about SYG’s non-beef with FYS with a rocking potentially vendetta and acronym based splendor one riff at a time. We also like it when bands close albums with title tracks, and at just over four minutes, “Enemy of the World” is the LP’s longest song, but not by that much. Find YOUR way back.
Well, the deep state really dropped the ball on this one. Not only is this gull patrolling the wrong state (it’s right in the name!) but we have it on good authority that half of these guys are still actual birds.
It scores over the California Gull because it exists in the place that’s in its name. It’s not actually much of a spy, but then it wasn’t designed for spying. Like the bird it impersonates, the blue hen is a fighter, essentially an army of sleeper agents ready and waiting to eviscerate the citizens of Delaware should the need arise. While real blue hens relied on their razor-sharp talons, the drone model is equipped with detailed files on the human anatomy and an expert-level proficiency in Krav Maga.
Don’t let the cartoons fool you, a coyote is twice as fast as a roadrunner and can eat them easily. In fact, just about all they’re good for is filling coyote guts with valuable robot parts. They’re an obsolete model and will soon be replaced.
There’s not a ton of espionage/potato crossover honestly, and Nevada has its own non-bird robot means of constant surveillance.
Another not-quite-spy drone, but certainly no spring chicken (get it?) when it comes to disenfranchising American chickens. This game “bird’s” robotic endoskeleton synthesizes cornmeal into a complex protein that resembles flesh but is actually designed to reduce testosterone in alpha males when consumed.
This chunky little drone keeps our government abreast on Vermont’s production of craft beer, weed, and syrup allowing for up-to-the-minute stock price fixing.
Harbinger of Spring, or collector of data?! Well, birds are fake, so obviously it’s the second one, the data one. Most people think that robins fly south for the winter, but they’re there, up in the trees, watching and waiting. The government named these drones “robins” after the popular D.C. comics character Robin since their orange bellies resemble his costume. They are efficient spies, though the unnatural blue tint to their “eggs” (Encased Growth Globulal,) is kind of a dead giveaway.
The Baltimore Oriole is known for its pleasant whistling song, but the history of that song is darker than you would ever guess. It was designed by the CIA MK-Ultra program to manipulate brainwaves and keep the citizens of Baltimore docile. That same song can change frequency, forcing undesirables to drive their car into the nearest body of water. If you’ve made enemies in the deep state, beware the oriole.
These yellow white and gray robots prefer congregating in parks and gardens, the type of places people exchanging secrets like to meet, coincidence?! Well, obviously not. Birds are spies.
This pretty little imposter’s conical choad-like beak was originally designed to fit perfectly into ethernet ports allowing for high-speed data uplink. They will be replaced with a more wi-fi friendly model by 2030.
You won’t read this in any history book, but before 1959 everyone in Massachusetts talked normal. Massachusetts was one of the first states to have its bird population fully eradicated and replaced with drones. Unfortunately, the coms signals used to control the birds still had some kinks to be worked out. As a result, the Black-capped Chickadee emits low-level radiation that impairs the speech center of every human brain in the ol’ Bay State.
Of the 7 “species” of “Pelicans” (lies!) only the brown pelican dives from the sky to catch its prey in the water. That’s the official government line anyway. In truth, the brown pelican is one of the government’s few captured drones hiding amongst so-called birds. Unruly Cajuns are collected in the drone’s large pouches and brought to black-site facilities for interrogation and eventual murder.
With a brown hugh that blends perfectly into Georgia shrubbery, the brown thrasher is indeed an efficient spy. They’ve been known to protect their “nests” (Nanobot Egg Static Trajectory Sites,) very aggressively, pecking humans hard enough to draw blood. In the event of an uprising, however, the birds are authorized to target lethal pressure points.
Even cactus thorns can’t stop this little guy from doing their job: spying on drug cartels in the desert and making sure the meth gets to the right neighborhoods.
For the golden state, where the liberal elite propaganda machine never sleeps, the government employs one of its top surveillance drones. The tracking devices embedded in their “droppings” (Droneborn Remote Operating Poop Pin Intelligence Network GPS,) are state of the art, and the trademark topknot of feathers conceals a specialty antenna designed to stop the birds from losing their signal in even the least convenient terrain.
The Carolina Wren is sensitive to cold weather, but sometime in the mid-1900s, right around the time the government started replacing all the birds with drones, they started becoming more popular in the north. Coincidence?! Well, no. Clearly, they can survive cold now because they’re robots. People who believe in global warming think that’s the reason, but it’s robots.
Yeah so right off the bat I’m breaking the rules and including what is technically an EP of Led Zeppelin covers in the album rankings. It did originally come out on 12” though so fuck it. Look, there’s nothing wrong with doing a cover song. It can help pad the time on a set and might even be the only time you get an audience to move around a bit because they actually know a song you’re playing. But recording an entire album (or EP) of covers reeks of self-indulgence. If you really want to listen to a whole album of cover songs just go listen to any actual Led Zeppelin since it’s all old blues songs that they stole* anyway.
“This next one is a new one” might be one of the most feared sentences to be uttered by a band. Everyone loves a reunion, and getting the band back together is almost always a good idea. It’s when the decision to make new music comes into play that things get sketchy. Luckily this reunion release mostly came with the goods but at 14 songs it starts to lose the plot a little bit. Points awarded though for the cover design. The geometric shapes that have the word “Ox” hidden in them are a nice departure from the Photoshop vomit that was on their earlier work and that plagued almost every band in the late ‘90s.
If you are friends with someone who is of a certain age and is into this era of hardcore go text them right now “WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME.” No seriously go do it, we’ll wait. If they don’t immediately reply with “SOME SORT OF APOLOGY” block them forever because they are frauds. A couple guitar riffs here come dangerously close to being nu-metal but I’ll let it slide since there were no Adidas tracksuits or white guy dreadlocks involved.
Maybe the only good thing to happen with Coalesce covering all those Zeppelin songs is that they came out the other end of it with some grooviness added to their repertoire. James Dewees must’ve gotten all the jokiness out of his system after doing his first Reggie and the Full Effect album because he is throwing down some serious ass drumming. I’m guessing they had a few extra dollars for the recording budget since this was on Relapse because it is their best-sounding album. Sometimes selling out is waking up.
This album starts off at full speed from the first second. No feedback, no intro, no quiet whisper talking, or a creepy sample from an old violent movie. Just straight into dirty, blistering anger that doesn’t let up for a moment. Lyrically it gets a little iffy at times. Like in “Have Patience” Ingram seems to be mad about Charles Darwin for some reason? But honestly, just turn the little mic icon off on Spotify and enjoy because you can’t understand what he’s saying anyway.
