Various Artists – Punk Rock Is Your Friend #6

There’s two things that are immediately evident here on Kung Fu Records‘s Punk Rock Is Your Friend #6 compared to their previous release Punk Rock Is Your Friend #5. The first is that, thankfully, they don’t have any movie sound clips. While PRIYF5 was filled with clips from their movie Cake Boy, they just became annoying and redundant. It would’ve been better just to put more songs in, and that’s what they did with this one. But those extra songs they added aren’t the melodic pop-punk that Kung Fu has become famous with. Rather, they are from the hardcore record label Broken Sound (which is owned by Chad and Ian of New Found Glory). The labels have recently started working together and you get a good view of what to expect from the new label here. They have songs from Righteous Jams, H2O, Suffocate Faster and xdeathstarx here for all those hardcore fans, and of course, Kung Fu‘s own Underminded.

But even with these changes in the compilation, it still has many of the same concepts as its predecessor. There are a fair few unreleased songs, a dance remix of The Vandals‘ My Neck, My Back by Shingo Ikioi and of course, clips from the labels recent DVD series, The Show Must Go Off!. So with pop-punk, live performances, hardcore breakdowns and even dance remixes, you know this CD will be diverse and the standout tracks reflect that. Some of the best songs on there are the live tracks from bands like Bouncing Souls or The Dance Hall Crashers. But at the same time, songs by Tsunami Bomb, Audio Karate and Cooper also stand out a bit. The compilation also introduces the listener to Vs. The World with their unreleased track If I Died. The band, which features Mike from The Ataris, was just signed to the label and will be releasing their debut in a few months.

Sadly, even though there are so many bands on here, the label still seems to be scrapping the bottom of the barrel for ideas as to what to put on here. With two songs from Underminded, Audio Karate, Tsunami Bomb, Righteous Jams and The Vandals leave you feeling like you deserved more from a compilation. You don’t want to hear the same band over and over again on a compilation, that’s what splits and full lengths are for. It’s something smaller labels with a smaller roster normally do, not established labels with a big roster.

Punk Rock Is Your Friend #6 (Hardcore Is Your Friend Too) is simple a mediocre compilation. Kung Fu could’ve done both a lot worse or a lot better, but then again, for under four bucks, you can’t be expecting too much.