It usually takes me about a year to digest a NMN album. This one was no different, although I still have big problems with certain aspects. There’s too much Hanson Brothers that surrounds brilliant material, and there is just too much stuff that is thrown away, especially given the time that has elapsed since the last album.
The nexus of NMN brilliance and the flaws in this album is “Mondo Nihillissimo 2000,” which brilliantly shreds the popular, right-wing account of morality beyond repair. But at the same time, it is kind of a throwaway track. Assuming that you have a basic level of intelligence, you’ll laugh the first couple of times you hear this song. After that, you’ll be skipping past it.
Still, this is probably a better album than anyone else could put out. The best track is “Faith,” which is, musically, a mix of jazz and punk that only Nomeansno could bring together so seamlessly into such a good song. Lyrically — and I generally despise lyrics — no other band could even dream of such content. Superficially, “Faith” is about a loyal dog. In reality, it is a song about a girl who has been abducted and has bonded with her captor. The third level of meaning has to do with the relationship of the speaker to faith itself. The idea that Jim Morrison was some great poet is a fucking joke. But Rob Wright really has something special to offer.