The Queers are, indubitably, the best punk band ever to come out of New Hampshire. This is true because
the Rezidudes are pretty much the only other punk band to come out of New Hampshire, and based on their debut album,
the Rezidudes kinda suck. They would no doubt counter that the suckiness of
Welcome to the Suck is entirely intentional: hence the album title. (If that phrase sounds familiar, it's the mantra from Anthony Swofford's black-comic war memoir, Jarhead.) But
Welcome to the Suck sucks in a way that's perhaps not the way in which
the Rezidudes intended for it to suck: the album consists of 20 covers of old pop, soul, and metal songs, focusing primarily on cheap-shot hunks of AM radio cheese like
John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane." (Yes, these clever boys
the Rezidudes have figured out what no one else has ever before realized:
John Denver's music can be made fun of! In other news, beer makes you drunk!) In the right hands, this sort of thing can result in some cheap, low-rent giggles. But here's the thing:
the Rezidudes are not even talented enough to deliver their single, hacky, dated, tired joke. The goofball fun of bad covers of bad covers is overshadowed by the fact that the players are so completely inept that every song sounds exactly like the one that came before, whether it's "867-5309/Jenny" or "Brown Eyed Girl." This is how bad this album is: even the cover of
Gang Green's "Alcohol," a Boston skatepunk anthem that these mooks should be able to play in their sleep, sounds dreadful. This might look like a fun, silly time. It ain't. ~ Stewart Mason