Various Artists – …And Out Come The Lawsuits

…And Out Come The Lawsuits is a tribute to Rancid’s 1995 album …And Out Come The Wolves, if you’re not familiar with this influential album then go pick up a copy of that first, and then you can grab this unique tribute that matches the tracklist precisely. Over the years countless bands and musicians on the punk scene have cited this album as an influence, and even as their introduction to the punk scene, and nineteen of them have contributed to this reimagining of the album that celebrates the 25th anniversary of the album, I know that technically it’s 26 years but as far I’m concerned 2020 doesn’t count.

I’ll put my cards on the table, I’m not usually a fan of tribute albums, and especially not of tribute bands, but in both cases there are occasional exceptions and …And Out Come The Lawsuits is one of them. This is an album that shows the breadth of styles that Ranicd influenced, of course you’ve got those who took the raw power and hit the gas and turned everything up to 11 (Stay Wild / Bad idols). This might be something you’d expect to hear, but as you delve deeper into …And Out Come The Lawsuits you start to get a sense of the scope of this compilation.

Lo-fi indie punk (Little Debbie & The Crusaders / School Bus Driver) rubs shoulders with the acoustic (Matt Moua / Angelboy + The Halos), the melodic (Get Married / Danger Inc.), raw punk rock (The Hammerbombs / Public Safety / Adult School) and pop punk (Sarchasm) right through to the extremes of the scene (Vantana Row). It also shouldn’t be any surprise to anyone familiar with Rancid that there’s also a full spectrum of ska fuelled punk outfits (Flying Racoon Suit / Omnigone / Link 80 / Matamoska / Pretty Frankenstein / Worriers) who make up a good chunk of the contributions.

A quarter of a century-ish later and …And Out Come The Lawsuits shows just how influential …And Out Come The Wolves was. Whilst it wasn’t the only influential album to have been released in that golden era of the mid to late 90’s when punk re-emerged from the cellars, it’s arguably the one has truly stood the test of time. Will you love every track on this? of course not, some you will adore and some you will never play again, but there would be no point releasing 19 straight up versions of the songs that appear on …And Out Come The Wolves, you might as well just play the original full length. What …And Out Come The Lawsuits does is give you a fresh perspective on the album, it also shows just how broad that album’s influence was and I guarantee you will find a new band you love.

..And Out Come The Lawsuits is now available via Lavasocks Records and Sell The Heart Records