Millencolin- The Melancholy Connection

This album combines b-sides and rarities spanning through the entire career (20 years!) of these Swedish pop-punk rockers. The album opens with the back-to-back punch of the only two new songs present on the album, “Carry You” and “Out of Nowhere.” The former being a standard catchy rocker and the latter slowing things down a bit, but both tracks are pretty standard Millencolin. The energy remains at a pretty constant high and I have no doubt that fans will be pleased with this release. However, my one quarrel with the album is its redundancy. This record could easily blend in with most of their other material; simply put, no boundaries are being pushed. This redundancy adds to their charm though, as they are consistent and fans definitely know what to expect. If you are looking for groundbreaking music, then maybe play this filtered through some wacky computer synthesizer, backwards and under water — then you will have achieved earth shattering. This is classic Millencolin, nothing fancy. Some highlights include “The Downhill Walk,” “Bull By the Horns,” and the funny little number “Phony Tony.”  Some solid stuff on this album — nothing can quite touch the epics “Fox” and “No Cigar” off Pennybridge Pioneers, but damn is some of this catchy. (Epitaph, epitaph.com/) Scott Wolfe

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