Review: Hanson Brothers - My Game

2003's My Game was the third and hopefully not last Hanson Brothers cd. The title and cover are a rip on Black Flag's My War. The sound is Ramones-based pop-punk and the themes are hockey, women and beer, in that order. The Hanson Brothers is a side project of NoMeansNo, and I have no idea if they exist anymore either.

That out of the way, the Hanson Brothers have to be on any thinking person's list of best pop-punk bands. 1992's Gross Misconduct is the sentimental favorite that nobody can deny. 1999's Sudden Death saw a slight move towards the eclecticity of NoMeansNo, and while it's a little less 1,2,3 Go! than their debut it's also a great record. "Can't Hide The Heino" and its cousin "I'll Ask The 8-Ball" are classics. Sudden Death and My Game are equally good, the latter being maybe a bit more solid.

The song "My Game" has a breakdown that sounds like The Descendents/All. "They Made her Mine" steals the riff from Alternative TV's "Action, Time and Vision". There's a phenomenal cover of Maxine Nightingale's hit "Right Back Where We Started From", here titled "Get It Right Back". I read the original was used in Slapshot so that's why it's here. The funniest tunes are "100 + 10%" and "Honey I'm Home".

You won't find a better polycarbonate plastic coated with a much thinner layer of super purity aluminium than this.