Pennywise: Pennywise [EPITAPH]

Why you'll love it

This Epitaph vinyl edition keeps the band's first full-length album in print. It introduced the Jim Lindberg, Fletcher Dragge, Jason Thirsk and Byron McMackin lineup, and "Bro Hymn" went on to become the band's signature singalong.

This edition

• Original Fred Hidalgo cover art
• 33 RPM

About the album

Long before every skate video seemed to have a Pennywise song on it, the band was four friends from the South Bay with a few demos and a deal with Brett Gurewitz's Epitaph. They went into Westbeach Recorders in Hollywood in 1991 and came out with fourteen songs of tight, fast, harmony-laced punk. Fred Hidalgo drew the logo and the cover art.

Jim Lindberg's vocals are urgent but tuneful, Fletcher Dragge's guitar is all speed and crunch, and Jason Thirsk and Byron McMackin lock the rhythm in place. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" kicks off the record, "Rules," "Living for Today" and "Homeless" keep the pace up, and "Bro Hymn" closes it with the kind of gang-vocal chorus that later filled festival fields. Trouser Press praised the crisp ensemble playing and called it skatepunk's answer to Bad Religion.

The band later re-recorded "Bro Hymn" in tribute to Thirsk, and it's still the song that ends their shows. There's also a track called "Side One" that turns up on side B, which we've chosen to treat as a joke rather than a filing error.

Also at Kops: more Pennywise on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Epitaph (cat# 86412-1), a reissue of the 1991 album.