ALBUM REVIEW: Railer – Lagwagon

The phrase ‘growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional’ embodies the spirit of skate punk. It doesn’t matter how fast the years pass or how many grey hairs and wrinkles appear, play it at a party and within a minute everyone is doing their best impersonation of Steve Buscemi from 30 ROCK, baseball cap on backwards and board over the shoulder. It’s music for those who refuse to let their youth leave them and LAGWAGON are one of the best around at doing it. They might have taken a number of hiatuses over the what is now a near thirty-year career but the fire inside them to create good, honest punk rock has never died. Out now, once again via Fat Wreck Chords, is Railer, their first album for five years and ninth studio recording overall.

It would be very easy to dismiss Railer as ‘another good skate punk album’ and ‘perfectly befitting in the rest of LAGWAGON’s back catalogue’, but it’s so much more than that. Sure, it sounds like it could have been released in the early 2000’s and nobody would have noticed, but that’s the joy of this style of punk; its reputation for being utterly timeless grows year on year. From the moment that Stealing Light kicks in with the joyous shout of “What’s another word for fuck?” from Joey Cape, countless evenings spent sculling about with mates as a teenager come flooding back, regardless of whether a half-pipe was involved or not. It’s not just straight up punk either – Surviving California incorporates a couple of NWOBHM-style solos from Chris Flippin and Chris Rest that compliment the sound gorgeously, the beginning of The Suffering is piano and spoken word led before a riff enters that could have come straight from a METALLICA record and Parable starts and finishes with acoustic guitars, an opening vocal line supplied by Cape’s daughter Violet for good measure.

What’s notable is that, whilst the music may not have changed significantly, the lyrical content has certainly shifted from boisterous cheek to something more reflective; even lead single Bubble, which manages to include “milk, milk, lemonade” doesn’t come across as infantile or behind the times. Rather, it serves as a reminder that there still lives a snotty, spotty boy inside each one of LAGWAGON that just wants to play up and cause mischief, despite the need to have a more adult outlook on life . Outside of this, the likes of Pray for Them and Fan Fiction are much more brooding, showing a maturity that is needed to ensure the genre can remain relevant despite its throwback sound. To round things off, they’ve even made the decision to throw in a cover of Faithfully by JOURNEY, making it their own and, in a twist of irony, not living up to the song title at all. But then, that wouldn’t be punk, would it?

For those who have kept up with the explosion of younger punk outfits like CREEPER and MARMOZETS, LAGWAGON have shown on Railer exactly where those influences lie. Given the way a band like GREEN DAY or BLINK 182 has gone in recent years, it would be easy to dismiss anyone who had a mid-90’s heyday as old hat and also-rans. The truth is, both of those wish they sounded like LAGWAGON in 2019. It’s not overtly challenging but it’s fun and bouncy, exactly what this sort of music should be and making one wish that Warped Tour was still going on.

Rating: 8/10

Railer is out now via Fat Wreck Chords.

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