NOFX: Heavy Petting Zoo/Eating Lamb [EPITAPH]

Why you'll love it

The LP edition has its own cover art and the Eating Lamb name on the front, with Heavy Petting Zoo on the spine and centre labels. It was the first NOFX album to reach the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 63.

This edition

• Vinyl edition cover art titled Eating Lamb
• Heavy Petting Zoo on the spine and centre labels

About the album

NOFX have never been a band to use one title when two will do. They cut this one in October 1995 with producer Ryan Greene at Razor's Edge in San Francisco, a garage studio the band cheerfully described as a dive, and came out with some of the most melodic songs of their career. Epitaph put it out in January 1996.

Fat Mike wrote every track, and the line-up of Mike, Eric Melvin, El Hefe and Erik Sandin plays them fast and tight, with El Hefe's trumpet popping up between the guitars. "Philthy Phil Philanthropist" and "Bleeding Heart Disease" show off the band's knack for a pointed title, "Liza" brings back characters from 1992's White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean, and "August 8th" is a nod to the death of Jerry Garcia. "Drop the World" closes it with a bang. Ryan Greene also engineered and mixed it.

Abroad it climbed to No. 20 in Austria and No. 13 in both Sweden and Finland. Clearly there's something about a long Nordic winter that calls for very fast skate punk.

Also at Kops: more NOFX on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Epitaph (cat# 86457-1), a reissue of the 1996 album.