Nomeansno: Wrong [ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES]

Why you'll love it

This Alternative Tentacles repress comes with an 11" insert of lyrics and credits plus a download card, back on the label for the first time in over 20 years. In 2021 Wrong won the public vote for the Polaris Heritage Prize.

This edition

• Download card included
• 11" x 11" lyric and credits insert

About the album

Two brothers from Victoria, B.C. had no business making punk this complicated, and thank goodness they did. Rob Wright on bass and John Wright on drums, with Andy Kerr on guitar, cut Wrong in a couple of weeks at Profile Studios in Vancouver in the summer of 1989, and it's still the high-water mark for anyone who likes their hardcore with a jazz drummer's sense of time.

"It's Catching Up" kicks off at a gallop, "The Tower" lurches through odd time signatures for five minutes, and "Brainless Wonder" and "Tired Of Waiting" are over before you've caught your breath. "The End Of All Things" adds orchestra bells, "Rags And Bones" grinds, and "All Lies" closes with six-plus minutes of controlled fury. AllMusic called it the band's masterpiece. Cecil English and Craig Bougie co-produced with the band, and the sound is lean, loud and remarkably clear, so you can hear every turn in the Wright brothers' playing.

John Wright himself called it their most popular album by a country mile, and the European tours that followed turned them into a cult phenomenon. An album called Wrong winning a public vote is the sort of result we find deeply reassuring.

Also at Kops: more Nomeansno on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Alternative Tentacles (cat# VIRUS 77), a reissue of the 1989 album.