NOFX 7 Inch of the Month Club: April (2006) Fat Wreck Chords

When NOFX announced their “7 Inch of the Month” club I was thrilled regarding the special offer. However, I never signed up and now I am paying dearly for it. Sure, I could download the MP3s and hear the songs (since they’ll never be available ANYWHERE else ::rolls eyes::), but doesn’t that defeat the point of collectors items? Luckily I have been able to track a few of these records down (without breaking my piggy bank too much) and I hope to bring closure to the entire series in the Org’s review database.

The third 7-inch appearing during the month of April delivers fans two and a half new songs. The first, “No Fun in Fundamentalism” is a typical modern NOFX song and would have easily fit on either of their last two albums. Fat Mike has always been an adamant fan of playing with words and the tune’s title and lyrics stress this aptitude. The chorus, albeit straightforward, is exuberantly catchy and most fans will be singing and clapping along by the second time they reset the needle.

Side B squeezes two songs in just over a minute: “Fungus” and “I’m a Huge Fan of Bad Religion.” The former is over before it begins while the latter is the climax of the 7-inch. The subject matter is just as the title states -- Fat Mike spilling his admiration and thoughts on the legendary Bad Religion. He claims the old men still know how to have fun and testifies that their signing to a major label was a blunder. Musically the song borrows from the BR catalog as Mike fills the outro with vocal “aaah"s straight from Graffin’s voice box and the guitars even have that Bad Religion tingle to them.

If you are like me and imprudently did not subscribe to this seven-inch club, but have the ability to obtain this volume in the series then I firmly recommend you snag it. It might seem peculiar to own only a fraction of the series, but these three songs are certainly prominent ones amongst the rare anthology.

(KirbyPuckett)