No Use for a Name: All the Best Songs (2LP, 2015 re-build) [FAT WRECK]

Why you'll love it

This 2015 re-build was transferred from the original tapes and remastered at The Blasting Room, then pressed as a 2LP set in a gatefold jacket with a printed insert and download card. It adds songs from the band's final album, The Feel Good Record of the Year.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Remastered from the original tapes
• Gatefold jacket
• Printed insert
• Download card included

About the album

Fat Wreck Chords has put out a mountain of melodic punk over the years, and few bands wore the label's colours as well as No Use for a Name. From 1987 on, the Northern California band spent two decades turning Tony Sly's tuneful, heart-on-sleeve songs into fast, bright skate punk. All the Best Songs first came out in 2007; after Sly's death in 2012, Fat rebuilt it for vinyl with new artwork and big photo collages.

It runs the whole story. "Justified Black Eye" and "Biggest Lie" are classic 90s Fat, all hooks and harmonies at full speed, "On the Outside" and "Invincible" show how good Sly was at a bittersweet chorus, and "For Fiona" slows down just enough to break your heart. Later songs like "The Feel Good Song of the Year" and "Under the Garden" prove the band never lost the spark, while "Dumb Reminders" and "Fatal Flu" keep the tempo high right up to "Exit."

It's the band's story in one sitting, built around a songwriter whose melodies still sound young. Twenty-eight songs across four sides is, by punk standards, a full working week.

Also at Kops: more No Use for a Name on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Fat Wreck Chords (cat# FAT952-1), a reissue of the 2007 compilation.