The opening of My Republic could easily be mistaken for the opening to just about any guitar based album from the past 30 years, with quietly plucked single notes pushing along for a moment or two. It is only as "Out of Mind" explodes into the best Bad Religion song since Mr. Brett left the band for the first time that the true tones of California punk surface and we are reminded just why Good Riddance do what they do so well.
As the simple melodies, easy backup vocals in all the right places, and predictable chord changes of "Texas" surface out the back end, however, there is a momentary hint that Good Riddance could be just about to become just another Fat Wreck band. Thankfully it doesn't happen and it soon becomes obvious that it is the nadir - a song to sell the album to pop punk kids looking for their first taste of something slightly better and nothing more. An anomaly that is redeemed by coming so early in album that it's long forgotten by the time the last chords of the tenacious "Uniform" fade away.
My Republic is a classic Good Riddance album. All acerbic political comment and personal melodrama fused into all those bands that everyone claims to sound like, but only Good Riddance actually do - Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Bad Religion, Pennywise, The Germs, X. It's all there in that classic Good Riddance mold. Easier listening than its predecessors at times with leviathan choruses and catchy hooks. With "Shame" and "Boise" exploring something close to the band's musical softer side, it's no less fervent or enthusiastic, just a little easier on old ears. With Bill Stevenson's production hitting the perfect tones of stridence and malleability, the most important thing about My Republic is that it's an album that works. It is, thankfully, not just another punk album with discordant musical and production values. It is not just another punk album with incongruous personal and political motives. It is the sort of album that the sort of band that is in harmony with itself and the music it wants to make makes.
Since Good Riddance has been doing this for 10 years, whatever else could be expected, however? Good Riddance does this better than just about anyone else to surface from the Fat Wreck scene. They are one of the few Fat Wreck bands that exist to play good punk music, not to stroke Fat Mike's ego by sounding exactly like what NOFX used to. My Republic is the latest in that line of fantastic punk albums that know they are punk albums and don't pretend they are anything else. The honesty shown to, not only make one of those albums, but to make six of them, stands as testament to the non-hype based ethic of Good Riddance.
In the punk world, it's easy to point to stagnation but with punk as good as this and with punk as true to its Californian forbearers as this, none of that progression matters. Good Riddance are one of the few bands that seem to know what they're doing and, with My Republic they've added another chapter onto their legacy as one of the finest current punk bands around. Perhaps more poppy than what we've become accustomed to it may not hit as hard or as well as Symptoms of a Leveling Spirit or Operation Phoenix. It is, never the less, probably, the best album of its type this year.
