Descendents – 9th & Walnut

Descendents are set to release the new full length, 9th & Walnut, via Epitaph Records on the 23rd July, but is this a new Descendents album? well, yes and no. The title of the band’s latest full length gives you a hint where this is coming from, it’s is a nod to the Long Beach rehearsal space from the band’s formative years, so is this a best of? well, yes and no. 9th & Walnut was recorded back in 2002 by the original quartet of Tony Lombardo, Bill Stevenson, Milo Aukerman and the late Frank Navetta, the four founding members entered the studio and recorded eighteen songs that were originally written between 1977 and 1980. so it’s not new material, or a best of, this is the original line up of the legendary punk band going back to their roots.

The opening paragraph should tell long term fans of the Descendents, and that’s probably most people reading this, everything they need to know. This is the band’s raw early, and mostly short and sweet material, faithfully played by the line up that created the songs and set the template for the Descendents. Of course the tracks have more of a studio polish than the original recordings, an almost inevitable event as this was recording over a decade after they were first written. Whilst the band are more cohesive than their early days, and there’s the aforementioned studio polish, none of the eighteen tracks have had their edge blunted, something that happens all too often when a much loved band goes into the studio to revisit their origins.

There are also three unreleased tracks thrown into the album, Ride The Wild, It’s A Hectic World and a cover of The Dave Clark Five’s Glad All Over, because there is always something to tempt the completists among us, and they bring something new to an album that largely offers a fresh perspective on material that is now over four decades old. To keep things firmly on their own terms 9th & Walnut was produced and mixed by the Descedents’ own Bill Stevenson at The Blasting Room, he also had a hand in engineering the album along with Milo and Jason Livermore, the latter of whom also also mastered the album. The end result is an album that takes us way back beyond the pre-pandemic era to an age before the internet was born, however, despite the passage of time and all of the social and cultural changes that have occurred, 9th & Walnut still sounds as fresh and relevant as ever.

You can pre-order / add / save 9th & Walnut here