Tony Hawk's American Wasteland - Various Artists
"My best interests? How do you know what 'my best interests' are?" A classic line from Suicidal Tendencies' 'Institutionalised', which neatly sums up the American old school punk mentality. A mentality that had the likes of Minor Threat, the Misfits and the Descendants sing and shout out about generation clashes, societal rejection and rebellious anger - an 'us versus them' attitude. Years later, and clearly nothing has changed, as the punk bands of today revitalise fourteen old school songs with the same sincerity and heartfelt anger on this Vagrant compilation.
Opening track 'Institutionalised', brought back to life by screamo heroes Senses Fail, is the best on the album and still one of the ultimate anthems for a disaffected youth. Charting a conversation between a boy and his parents, who want to send him to a mental institution, the song strikes a perfect balance between genuine reproach towards the older generation and self-parody; the later being fulfilled by the contrast between chorus line claim "I'm not crazy" and the verse, in which the singer goes into full scale rant over a can of "Pepsi". This song also contains my favourite rebellious punk lyric of all time: "What are you saying? I'm crazy? When I went to your schools? When I went to your churches? When I went to your institutional learning facilities?"
Invariably, the best efforts on this CD are the ones which inject some originality. Taking Back Sunday and Thrice, covering the Descendants and Minor Threat respectively, produce inventive efforts, each merging two tracks seamlessly. This year's punk success story, My Chemical Romance, do a rendition of the Misfits' 'Astro Zombies', Gerard Way's unique voice making this another of the album's stand-out tracks. Saves the Day's Dead Boys cover 'Sonic Reducer' is simply superb, the chorus literally floating off the tongue. From Autumn to Ashes do 'Let's have a war', their trademark angry vocals, happy vocals interchange fitting the song perfectly. Dropkick Murphys' "Who is Who" is another great track, although disappointingly there is no characteristic bag-pipe accompaniment. Thursday provide the disc's best sing-along moment with a true-to-life version of the Buzzcock's 'Ever Fallen In Love', the post-hardcore mob however unfortunately unable to tone down the cheesy nature of the song. . .but then again that would have been a tall order.
Unsurprisingly, there is little appeal on here for non-punk fans, and not all the tracks live up to the general standard of the album; Emanuel's "Search and Destroy", for example, is nothing special.
Apparently, the songs on this Tony Hawk's American Wasteland soundtrack were hand picked by the skateboard icon himself. If so, kudos to him because all the old songs and all the new bands are here - it shouldn't really matter if the game is rubbish with a soundtrack like this!