If you didn’t grow up in the ’90s, the instrumental noise rock of Don Caballero might be as foreign to you as Netscape, Tamagotchis, or affordable housing. Let’s dive into the definitive ranking of Don Cab’s studio albums, giving you the knowledge to impress snobby record store clerks and that weird uncle whose band once opened up for Unwound.
6. Punkgasm (2008)
“Punkgasm” was the second album by Don Caballero featuring a new lineup with original member drummer Damon Che remaining at the epicenter. This album builds on the more pounding rhythmic approach of the previous “World Class Listening Problem” and is the first Don Cab album to feature vocals. If you’ve been an instrumental band since the early ‘90s, introducing singing is taking a chance but the ‘80s prog rock inflection of “Celestial Dusty Groove” works surprisingly well. While “Punkgasm”, the album’s namesake track also has vocals, it’s the wackiest song Don Cab ever recorded sounding like a Van Halen tribute band suffering from the effects of heatstroke in an unairconditioned practice space.
Play it again: “Bulk Eye”
Skip it: “Punkgasm”
5. For Respect (1993)
1993 was an inflection point in alternative music. While Nirvana trolled their fan base with the less than radio-friendly “In Utero” bands like Green Day and the Offspring were readying their polished major label debuts in hopes of gigantic payouts. “For Respect”, Don Caballero’s first full-length, sounds like it comes from an alternate timeline where Grunge, chain wallets, and frat bros going to shows never happened. It’s an important album, with Don Cab effectively creating their own genre of frenetic instrumental music, unattached to any scene or pretenses.
Play it again: “Our Caballero”
Skip it: None, unless you’re a total poser whose mom pays for your Manic Panic and Doc Martens.
4. What Burns Never Returns (1998)
Most music that is labeled as “math rock” is pretty sterile and boring. While an 11/16 polyrhythm might be impressive to someone who graduated from the Berklee College of Music, its complexity is lost on those of us who can’t even get clapping on the one and three right. Don Cab may experiment with odd time signatures, but calling them math rock is unfair. On “What Burns Never Returns,” Damon Che’s drumming is as precise as it is chaotic, with Ian Williams’ guitar lines adding abrasive and intricate textures. The rest of the players anchor these songs, giving Damon and Ian plenty of room to fill with swirling pulses of sound.
Play it again: “Delivering the Groceries at 138 Beats per Minute”
Skip it: None
3. Don Caballero 2 (1995)
A great sequel takes what made an original special and amplifies it. “Don Caballero 2” is the Empire Strikes Back to For Respect’s New Hope, expanding their musical universe and adding depth. While most of their previous song clocked in at five or six minutes, “Don Caballero 2” sees them pushing things with several tracks at the ten-minute and 11-minute mark. This studio album also captures Don Cab experimenting more with dissonance and atmosphere, complicated song structures, and a head-bashing sense of repetition.
Play it again: “Repeat Defender”
Skip it: None, but skip the whole album if you have the lyrics to “Pretty Fly For a White Guy” memorized.
2. World Class Listening Problem (2006)
Remember when you were in a relationship for eight years, you broke up, and months later you were dating someone new? World Class Listening Problem is Don Caballero’s rebound with Damon Che finding an entirely new lineup than who six years earlier wrote and recorded American Don. Most notably missing was longtime guitarist Ian Williams (now of Battles), who had contributed so much artistically over the previous four albums. Though most bands can’t weather through such a change in lineups “World Class Listening Problems” feels fresh and optimistic, seeing the band go in a new direction that’s more linear and riff-based.
Play it again: “And and and, He Lowered the Twin Down”
Skip it: “I’m Goofballs for Bozzo Jazz”
1. American Don (2000)
“American Don,” the band’s fourth studio outing, would be Don Caballero’s last before the line-up change that would leave Damon Che as the only original member. With spindly guitar lines, pummelling bass, and galloping drumming, this album shows them at peak chemistry, despite the ongoing friction between Damon and Ian that would be their undoing. Add analog recording wizard Steve Albini, who captured it all on tape with a punchy and organic sizzle, and “America Don” of the best albums of indie instrumental music ever recorded.
Play it again: ‘You Drink a Lot of Coffee for a Teenager”
Skip it: None, this album should be etched onto a gold platter and sent off on a satellite to show alien civilizations that humans are capable of perfection.
P!ATD swan song 2022 LP “Viva Las Vengeance” caused the band to let the light go out like a sad clown having make-up sex in the middle of a breakup. Say that sentence out loud all by yourself. Long live punishment! While we wish that this wasn’t the band’s final album statement, we have no doubt that a comeback LP will hit the streets in 2032 just in time for Donald Trump Jr.’s snowy white and hopefully laughably unsuccessful Presidential campaign. Also, we don’t think that this record will hold up in about ten years, but stranger things have happened: Because of government-issued sites like Tik-Tok and Parlor, affirmative may be justified and the glorious Creed is bigger now than ever.
Despite the fact that 2018’s “Pray for the Wicked” contains their highest charting and rabidly infectious single “High Hopes,” with notes so jaw-dropping off the deep end it hurts our vocal register without even singing, this pop AF record just isn’t as consistent as the five that came before it. Maybe looser-fitting JNCO jeans and a lower number of co-writers may have made this acrobatic effort a tad more listenable, but what the hell do we know? This album likely bought Brendon the island from the cleverly named Scarlett Johansson 2005 film “The Island.”
While this 2013 effort contains without question P!ATD’s worst record title and actual album cover, it is definitely the first LP mentioned here to flow seamlessly and effortlessly through all of its tracks from song 1-10. Don’t judge a book by its cover and don’t judge things in general unless you are assigned a casual affair in the form of an album ranking article! Anyway, the band was very smart in making a ten-song release sans saturated fats and liquid nitrogen at just under thirty-three minutes for the short attention span theater known as our world, and would you like some jello? Back to the girl that you love: Next to the next album to be mentioned, this one has their second-best album song opener, “This Is Gospel,” which was luckily not locked away in permanent slumber. Oh woah-oh.
After the yet-to-be-mentioned-and-yet-to-offend-in-its-dumb-dumb-slot-here sophomore LP “Pretty. Odd.,” P!ATD created their third LP that exemplified more of a back-to-basics debut album vibe called “Vices & Virtues,” and whilst doing so triumphantly reclaimed its exclamation point to a hurricane of memories. Like entry number five above, this is another ten-track banger and a consistent and underrated one at that. Produced by the Freak of the Week Butch Walker of Marvelous 3, and John “Superman” Feldmann of Goldfinger, this record will make you singalong in your car like you’re 17 again, and it reintroduced the band to a completely new audience, especially when its second single “Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)” was featured in the ending credits of “The Smurfs,” proving that you hate us cause you ain’t us. Get that bag, Urie.
FYI: This album would’ve been ranked number one on this perfect list if track four, the band’s most superior single “Emperor’s New Clothes,” replaced tracks 1-3 and 5-11 and became an eleven-track repetitive yet lavish mansion of brilliance; it both feels good AND tastes good. However, the band fucked up royally by not doing so, and thus its two Ryan Ross records shine brighter here; if you can’t stop shaking, lean back. Still, the other ten songs on this record are a healthy combination of crazy and genius, and from a songwriting standpoint, 2016’s “Death of a Bachelor” combines Queen, Frank Sinatra, The B-52s, a post-Bachelor Party toilet bowl conference, and more in a very respectable fashion. It’s a hell of a feeling though, it’s a hell of a feeling though; oozin’ aahs.
You know this one. You love this one. We’re wrong about the placement of this one. This is their first album, making it record number one. This one’s biggest single WON MTV’s “Video Of The Year” at the 2006 VMAs to the surprise of just about everyONE. One song on this album is called “London BeckONEd Songs About mONEy Written By Machines” and another one is called “There’s A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered hONEy, You Just Haven’t Thought of It Yet,” so let’s end this piece with entry number one. One singular sensation.
P is for “Panic,” “Pretty (Odd),” “Pas de Cheval,” and “polarizing,” so imagine the band dropped acid given to them by Bob Dylan backstage at a Boys Like Girls Royal Variety Performance, listened to “Rubber Soul” over and over 1965 times, commandeered strange and dated clothes from your creepy uncle, and you’ve got the band’s grower-but-not-a-shower 2008 LP “Pretty. Odd.” Like we alluded to above, main songwriter Ryan Ross left after this one along with the band’s exclamation point, but we still think if their third record “Vices & Virtues” flip-flopped its release dates with this sophomore LP, the Ross-Urie-feeling-as-good-lovers-can duo would still be flopping around together mad as rabbits. And everybody gets there, everybody gets their and everybody gets their way.
