Review
The Lovely Lads
The Best You've Got

Eating Rats (2006) Jason

The Lovely Lads – The Best You've Got cover artwork
The Lovely Lads – The Best You've Got — Eating Rats, 2006

The Lovely Lads score some major points with me right away by using Pulp Fiction themed artwork in their layout for The Best You've Got. Sure it isn't the most original idea ever in the history of recorded music or even in punk rock and hardcore, but it beats seeing CD cover after cover of Jacob Bannon wannabe skull and blood Photoshop massacre. It's even better than the typical varsity font with crowd singing along shot.

However, after that Boston's Lads don't score many more points with me. The Best You've Got is twelve tracks of mid-tempo street punk with a slight hardcore influence, some minor mosh parts and some gang vocals. It's not that the songs on here are horrible or anything, they're just sort of there like a legless armless baby just wanting to be held and loved. There isn't much on this album that I can latch onto. There isn't a memorable hook or a catchy chorus that will have me humming along to them on the train.

Maybe I'm not the best person to review The Best You've Got because I'm not the biggest aficionado on street punk. So as far as I know this could be the best thing since...what? The Business? I really don't know. All I do know is that I hear some the same damn tempo being used in the same songs except for the Intent to Injure cover, which is the fastest track on here. The opening track, "We're Not on Your Side" shows some piss and vigor urging people that don't get along with The Lovely Lads to suck their collective dicks. And "Dead Horse" is a catchy song that had me doing a little bit of pogo action in my chair. The rest of The Best You've Got beats the hell out of the proverbial before mentioned mare with its lackluster playing and monotone rhythms that couldn't move an epileptic in a Grand Mal seizure during a 0.5 earthquake. I even scoffed at the "1, 2 fuck you" part in "Misery". No buddy, fuck you, for being tiresome and repetitive. Even this song hits a new low with the overused cliché sound clip of clinking glass and random shouting that I've heard on a million drunken punk albums before I even heard of The Lovely Lads.

Sure, maybe I was a letdown because of the sweet Pulp art and I was hoping I was going to get a sweet rip roaring street punk rock that will want me lace up my Docs and go drink dark beer at some bar that has been owned by the same Irish family since their boat showed up on Ellis Island. There isn't anything on The Best You've Got that makes me want to go shave my head with a straight razor or even half heartily pump my fist in the air. If you are into street punk you will probably be all over this but for me I'm just a bored and uninspired by the constant mid-tempo stagnant drumming, the cute one-note guitar solos, and angry lyrics that don't sound angry at all. I'm just going to have to pass on this.

4.5 / 10Jason • May 24, 2006

The Lovely Lads – The Best You've Got cover artwork
The Lovely Lads – The Best You've Got — Eating Rats, 2006

Recently-posted album reviews

Various Artists

Her Head's On Fire/Arms Like Roses - Split
Double Helix (2025)

Her Head’s On Fire (NY, NY) and Arms Like Roses (New Haven, CT) team up on this split 7” with two new tracks (one each band) of post-hardcore tunes that are both massive and melodic in their own distinct ways. "Universal" is the track from Her Head’s On Fire. Recorded by the band’s guitarist Jeff Dean, "Universal" came from the … Read more

Dead Bars

All Dead Bars Go To Heaven
Iodine (2025)

Dead Bars has a unique talent of taking the everyday, the experiences you see and live all the time, and shining a new light on them to make them personal and interesting. I've written about it before, yet it's my job to say this again and to make it interesting. It's what Dead Bars does, so it only seems fitting … Read more

Painkiller

The Great God Pan
Tzadik (2025)

Painkiller, the trio of John Zorn, Bill Laswell, and Mick Harris shows no signs of slowing down. The Great God Pan is their third full-length, since their reunion in 2024, and in many ways it is an unexpected offering. In keeping with their interests in the metaphysical realm, Painkiller find inspiration from the famed Arthur Machen horror novella. Here, the … Read more