As Aukerman laments time not spent with his wife and the encroaching caricature of a Mick Jagger-aged rocker, the band seems to barely take a breath. The Descendents pick up the torch and tighten the slack with the other side of their love-song coin on the lost/never-had song "Here with Me", and they carry the momentum with a kinetic resignation letter in "I Quit". An admirable effort, the song is a bright red flashing signal that the train has left the tracks. To be fair, The Descendents take a softer tone, listing the bad (racism, Joe McCarthy) alongside the good (Mark Twain, Otis Redding) which makes the song more about knowing the country you love before you slide down the steep slope of jingoism. Unfortunately, it is a lot like what Bad Religion's done before: It sounds like that band soft shoeing a typical dismantling of the pretty picture of Americana. But the following title song is like nothing they've done before. Everything's in place on this song, from Aukerman's pleading vocals to Stephen Egerton's quick and tidy solo, and it resonates as strongly and vividly as anything they've recorded previously. ![]() "Nothing with You" opens the album as a sigh of contentment over the laziness of true love, only breaking the illusion of a lost 80s master by mention of Mad About You and Seinfeld re-runs. So 'Merican might come as a bit of a jab to the hardcore fan who always assumed they could count on at least one punk band to never change. ![]() If their songs aren't dwelling on shitty parenting skills or unrequited affection, they're mocking the customs of the adult world and reveling in juvenilia. With albums as flawless as Liveage! and Milo Goes to College, and a mission statement that lacks the words "reshaping" and "new era," The Descendents have never made any bones about being desperately teenage, despite the creep of years, family and, in Milo Aukerman's case, an actual career.
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