For those that don’t know, H2O is synonymous ‘90s New York Hardcore. The Lower East Side of Manhattan band, home of the late, great venue Coney Island High named themselves after the most popular and name-dropped beverage of all time, and released their powerful, concise, and aggressive self-titled debut just two years later in 1996. Since then the band released six more full-length albums and bridged the gap between Gorilla Biscuits and Madball in a catchy, catchy fashion. Also, three-fourths of the now four-piece have been in the band since 1996, and half of them have been in the lineup since the band began, proving that water is thicker than blood, and that steadfast strident loyalty is still a thing, even in 2023. Go! figure.
7. Go (2001)
Speaking of the word “Go,” go may be the last two letters in a popular H2O cry, but this major label release was their first and last LP with such a conglomerate, accidentally succeeded at making many longtime fans whimper. The songs here aren’t that bad but the band sounds sterile, and that isn’t typically how water tastes. Fun opinion: The band’s Madonna cover here, which is a hidden track on “Go,” is enjoyable for fans of any genre, and said tune truly deserves your attention. Sadly this album was their last full-length from the band for just over seven years, as H2O released an EP called “All We Want” in 2002, and nothing else until 2008.
Play it again: “Role Model”
Skip it: “Forest King”
6. Don’t Forget Your Roots (2011)
Todd Morse, brother of H2O vocalist Toby, still joins the band on stage on guitar and backing vocals for select shows/tours, but this cover LP is his last with the band… For now! Todd currently moonlights as the full-time bassist in a little-known punk band from Southern California known as The Offspring. Anyway, the group’s sixth album “Don’t Forget Your Roots,” an obvious nod to getting old whilst still listening to Warzone, is fun front-to-back and serves as a solid introduction to many of the band’s influences including Bad Brains, Embrace, and early Tony Bennett, but falls short of the rest of what’s yet to be listed. Still, someday we’re more than down for another studio album like this, at least we suppose, as times are changing… We wanna live!
Play it again: “Journey To The End Of The East Bay” by Rancid
Skip it: “Scared” by Verbal Assault
5. Use Your Voice (2015)
It’s been almost eight years since the last H2O album “Use Your Voice” hit cool indie rocker stores, and from the heart, we’d like another one STAT! The black sheep father figure of hardcore known as Chad What’s Eating Gilbert of Shai Hulud, New Found Glory, Hazen Street, and Bang Tango produced this one and its former that wasn’t a cover LP, “Nothing to Prove,” and Gilbert must still be dreaming about recording such a credible, noteworthy, and legendary band in the fun, fun, fun world of punk rock; honestly, we think that everyone wishes that they were from New York, especially Floridians who have a true romance for anything outside of a swamp except for your grandma. Through thick and thin, NYHC, which means New York Happy Club, skate punk, aggressive music, and doo-wop all owe a lot to H2O and their mantra: “Little. Yellow. Different.”
Play it again: “Black Sheep”
Skip it: “Still Dreaming”
4. Nothing to Prove (2008)
At just under twenty-four minutes over the course of ten tracks, it isn’t much of a time investment to listen to “Nothing to Prove” from its Bamm-Bamm Rubble beginning to the critically charged end, but this record STILL isn’t the band’s shortest album, which is nutty in the best way; the aforementioned newest H2O record “Use Your Voice” is slightly shorter and thus, slightly better, obviously. Anyway, “Nothing to Prove” is the band’s fifth studio album, and it served as a sort of return to form to showcase that the band is aware of what happened and that they’re still here whilst unconditionally loving hardcore punk. We know that we’re wearing our hearts on our sleeves by saying this, but we feel that without hesitation this is the best H2O album from this century. What happened? Well, they were quite inspired after the blowback regarding their previous LP, “Go”. Maybe?
Play it again: “What Happened?”
Skip it: “Mitts”
3. F.T.T.W. (1999)
You may want to flip this ranking with what is listed below at number two, but you’re wrong day by day, chance by chance, life by life, in every which way, hey hey hey, that’s what I say. Can you overcome? Yep. “F.T.T.W.,” the last H2O LP to be released before the new millennium, and also the band’s final of two records for Epitaph Records, is a hard-hitting nearly twenty-track set of songs that almost knock you off your feet as quickly as “Thicker Than Water” did before it… Almost. Still, by the time this record came out, H2O went from a side-stage Warped Tour band to a main-stage headliner powerhouse group literally moving so much faster than many in their world… And deservedly so! The band were road warriors at this point, showing that the five-piece’s forcefield helped much more than it hoped for in the late nineties.
Play it again: “Guilty by Association”
Skip it: “Reputation Calls”
2. Thicker Than Water (1997)
H2O signed with rock powerhouse Epitaph Records after their Blackout! Records album debut, and released “Thicker Than Water” shortly afterwards, which was a part of hardcore punk briefly affecting American aggressive mainstream culture, with peers like CIV leading the charge two years before. H2O provided a transition from that sound into the eventual aughts Drive-Thru Records blend of pop-punk/mall punk which combined the aggression of H2O with saccharine choruses. Also, “Thicker Than Water” definitely had a part in making cargo camo shorts a mainstay of a band’s stage show whilst angry audience members joined a circle pit pointing their supportive index fingers at the stage while screaming particular lyrics and crowd killing those that couldn’t sing along to hardcore’s now universal language. In closing, T-shirts with a specifically badass hard-hitting lyric on the back, and a black and white live band shot were popular in this world as well.
Play it again: “I See It In Us”
Skip it: “Innocent Kid”
1. Self-Titled (1996)
Our curse, but we know why: There are no “skip it” tracks on this super self-titled debut from H2O, which, like all of the band’s albums, consists of a beyond killer opening song; we love chants, being surrounded by Gen-Eric, well-cited book reports, family trees, and Jim Carrey’s “The Mask.” In addition, the album features here are noteworthy in that Dicky Barrett of ska-core, the devil, and plaid suit-wearing eight-hundred piece, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Armand Majidi and Pete Koller of the like-minded Sick of it All, Tim Shaw of New Jersey’s hardcore punk act Ensign, and Buddy Holly of the metalcore act of all metalcore acts, The Crickets, all appear prominently on “H2O.” Recorded at Brielle Studios in NYC, this record was made quickly, and even mixed in a rapid timeframe, at just three days. Anyway, we are confident that you like this ranking, unless you don’t.
Play it again: “5 Yr. Plan” till the end
Skip it: 6 Yr. Plan