The Raging Nathans – Failures in Art: Sordid Youth Vol. 2 (Rad Girlfriend Recrds / Brassneck Records, 2022)

Dayton, Ohio’s finest, The Raging Nathans are back once again (which in my opinion is always welcome) with the second volume of their series of collected compilation and 7in tracks. There’s a wealth of material here. A whole 20 songs, so it’s defo great value for money.

If you know me, you’ll obviously know I’m all about absolutely anything these guys do – for my money, The Raging Nathans are the hardest working and most prolific band doing the rounds out there in this forsaken period of time. The fact that they keep rolling out new material almost constantly and maintain such high quality in terms of both decent song writing and managing to go stale speaks volumes in and of itself. Getting stuff out there I suppose is easier if someone in the band runs one of the labels involved (Josh runs Rad Girlfriend Records – a label that continues to go from strength to strength). It’s a testament to everyone involved that they aren’t just dialling shit in. Every release brings something new to the table to keep shit interesting, without straying too far from what for me, is a winning formula.

I’ve got a right old pile of 7in records by The Raging Nathans. Love ’em, mate. But there’s something to be said for having stuff collected together in one handy and brightly coloured slice of vinyl, innit? Look at it as extending the pleasure (ooh! sexual!) or a massive reduction in adminstrative effort (all that flipping records and taking out of sleeves doesn’t really bother me, if I’m honest, but I am also fairly lazy, so, you know…).

The more I listen to this collection, the more I feel an admiration for the material here. This compilation album flows so beautifully from end to end. There’s absolutely no filler. I could name a whole raft of bands that these days seemingly make careers out of churning out LP after LP of turgid, dialled in shite that total morons continue to eagerly eat up with gusto like the dunces they are. Consider again that this stuff presented here is not only all non-album stuff, but that this is the second LP collection of this kind that they’ve put out… yeah dude. A whole bunch of bands that would have you convinced that you should respect them are laughing in your faces. It’s not clear who should feel more ashamed: the bands committing acts of grand larceny or the listening public that let them get away with it.

Anyways, the chances are that you the reader may be entirely new to The Raging Nathans. I’d happily suggest this as being as good a starting point as any that I could care to mention. I realise that I’ve managed to get this far in a review without giving you any “sounds like” kinda references. Luckily I caught myself slipping, innit. The Raging Nathans, as is typical, take the best bits of Screeching Weasel, RKL (Rich Kids on LSD for younger readers), The Riverdales, Pink Lincolns, The Queers, early Green Day Teen Idols and Zero Boys. They strip it down and reconfigure it some kind of genius-ass way that I, non-musician that I am, could never hope to explain. Essential.

Tony of Nurgle rating: 10/10

You can hook this up in the UK from Brasneck Records or Rad Girlfriend Records in the US on yellow, random mystery colour or black…

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