Good Riddance – Before The World Caves In

Melodic hardcore punks and Fat Wreck Chords mainstays Good Riddance issue this, their tenth album as they mark the 40th anniversary of their foundation in Santa Cruz in 1986. Before The World Caves In is 13 rocket-propelled and highly polished tracks of impossibly accomplished punk that will rattle your brain. Not content with bludgeoning your ears, Good Riddance have a political core of incendiary social comment that speaks to their commitment to documenting their dissatisfaction with life. There’s a directness and intensity in these songs that bonds well with deliberate dissonance (There’s Still Tonight, All Just Rain, Thoughts Words Scars, No Imperfect Way) but it’s the band’s tendency to return to melody that makes this album great listen. No More System To Believe In and Drive Faster are perfect examples of a craft mastered. Angry yes, but damnably catchy to the point where you feel a warm familiarity. That’s not to say that these songs are generic – it’s hard to be anthemic and stunningly original.

But originality is not the driver here. These guys know their trade and have honed it through decades of dedication to their cause. The songcraft is superlative and perfectly executed with a swagger that fits their earned status as senior figures in the melodic hardcore punk scene. The album is a breathless tsunami of superhuman drumming and frantic riffing that has surprising moments of found sound and enormous fragility. As urgent and vital as any debut album, Before The World Caves In is a testament to endurance and to being true to yourself. This is a vital collection, in the literal sense that it is alive with frantic energy. The band’s lyrical conviction and social conscience also make this worthy, if that matters at all. It should, in these post-truth shitty times.

Standout track it the massively uplifting Drive Faster but there’s so much to love here for so many reasons. Most of all, it’s a defiantly honest record by a band still distressed by societal decay, despair and loss of control, and determined to document it. GR are the OGs.

Before The World Caves In by Good Riddance is out now on Hopeless Records via Fat Wreck Chords. The band is touring extensively in North America and continental Europe through the Spring and Summer.