Descendents are familiar with the art of the comeback. In 1996, they released their second solid gold classic LP, ‘Everything Sucks’, after a layoff of nine years. Its follow up, the patchy but entertaining ‘Cool To Be You’, wouldn’t hit shelves for another eight. Twelve summers have fizzled since Milo was last scrawled on an album sleeve, the longest gap in a career pock-marked by absences, but ‘Hypercaffium Spazzinate’ resets the counter in some style. It’s fast, funny and home to some of the best straight-up pop songs this band have ever committed to tape.
Opening to the frantic downstrokes of Stephen Egerton’s guitar on Feel This, the quartet slip seamlessly back into the formula that they first sketched out on ‘Milo Goes To College’ back in 1982. They wear their accumulated experience well, coming over as assured and confident rather than weary. Vocalist Milo Aukerman, in particular, sounds energised as he rattles off hook after hook and missives from a lyric sheet that veers from the tongue-in-cheek, like the update of I Like Food on No Fat Burger, to the deadly serious.
As much as Descendents put bands half their age to shame on ‘Hypercaffium Spazzinate’, they aren’t afraid to confront the fact that they’re all safely ensconced in their 50s, continuing a grand tradition by documenting the latest stage of their collective growing up.
Milo discusses Bill Stevenson’s recovery from the pulmonary embolism and a brain tumour that almost killed him on a number of songs, notably Comeback Kid and the bittersweet Smile. “I can see the fear has made you desperate, burned out,” he sings. “All I can do is lend a hand, be a friend again.”
Stevenson powers through his work, having doubled up as producer with Egerton as well as sitting behind the kit, and once again seamlessly underpins Karl Alvarez’s ongoing mission to take bass melodies to fresh heights. The 16 songs assembled here fly past in a little over half an hour, with the quality of the writing and the pace with which the tunes are dispatched giving the record a giddy sense of fun even as the band’s gaze turns inward.
They sign off with Beyond The Music, a sibling of sorts to ‘Everything Sucks’ closer Thank You. This time, the focus isn’t on X or Black Flag, the bands that inspired their beginnings, but on themselves. “Here we are today," Milo sings. “Still look each other in the face not expecting a single thing beyond the music." It’s a triumphant manner in which to close the record and also a chance to air a sentiment shared by the fans, and songwriters, who’d be a little more lost without Descendents in their life.
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