On April 4th, 2007, Edenpark announced that they’d broken up. Wow, it’s about friggin’ time! Just kidding. However, without having ever seen Edenpark in concert, I’m certain that this band is much better live than could ever be captured on a modest-budget studio recording.

Put out by PoorBoy Records, a (very) small DIY record label run by pop-punkers No One’s Hero, Edenpark’s The ___________ Album is a Neapolitan chunk of fun, experimentation, and humor. The schizophrenic styles are in a constant identity crisis, but not really in a bad way. More of a “hmmm” way.

The tumultuous anticipation-building “Intro” makes it seem like what follows will be something like Aus-Rotten or Refused, and in fact the first song after the “Intro” is built on rapid-fire hardcore. But the fairly silly lyrics of “What do you see when you come to a punk show?” that repeat over and over with strange Native American-meets-Karate Kid style background vocals are a clear indicator of the goofiness that ensues on The ___________ Album. The rest of the album can only be described via individual songs, and a generic allocation of the genre in which they fit best. “Freedom Wolf” is nearly three minutes of loungey jazz before breaking into a minute of hardcore, “It’s All a Day” begins with a minute of a capella and finger snaps before transitioning into a bouncing ska-ish rhythm, and “Beef Oven” is in a hard rock style with slowly repeated group shouts of “Rock…and…roll!”

With other song titles like “Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Waffles,” “Suzy Kerplop,” “Guitarstrumentalude” and “Angrified,” there’s no doubt that the members of Edenpark are huge dorks, and of course that’s meant in the nicest way possible. The adorable 19-second “Everybody Dance Now” features a child shouting the early `90s C+C Music Factory Hit accompanied by one of the band members (possibly lead singer BBS) and is almost reason enough to buy the album.

After half an hour of trying to figure out who to compare this band to, it finally hit me. Edenpark is like the Blue Meanies of hardcore. Funny, weird, experimental, and often hard to get into, The ___________ Album is a lot of fun for a genre that’s often plagued by meatheads who take themselves way too seriously. Even though the band announced their break-up earlier this summer, they do have one last show on July 1, 2007 in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania. If The ___________ Album is any indication, Edenpark would be a blast to see live. So if you’ve got the locale or the desire, you’ve also got one last chance to see Edenpark live.