mi6 - "Alcoholiday" (SumpPump Records)

Album review by Chris Wagner

mi6 has been really busy. In the grand punk tradition, their latest self-produced release Alcoholiday sports no fewer than twenty-four songs (including five re-released tracks from their '98 EP), parts of which they also recorded and engineered. The band has also found time to maintain a website (http://www.mi6.net/) that recently received a front-page nod in the New York Times, as well as burn up garageband.com's top 25 list in a heated battle for a $250,000 recording contract. Not bad for a band whose songs include tributes to alcohol, huffing, and television vegetation.

Stylistically, mi6 is firmly entrenched in contemporary West Coast punk, bouncing back and forth between SoCal and the Bay Area; they borrow from their heroes as much as any band, paying homage to both old and new school influences with galloping drums, chugging guitars, and an irreverent lyrical stance. The main difference is in the subject matter. Yes, there is a very NOFX-like sense of humor threaded throughout much of the album, and the characters in these songs are more caricature than portrait- good-naturedly juvenile, kinda like a high-school kegger crashed by the stoner kids (awkward sex, copious booze, shitty jobs). "JabberJaw" eschews subtlety with its stomping Pennywise-ish intro riff and catchy chorus ("Dad" yells "Turn it down/Turn it down"), while "Lezbian Girlfriends" laments unrequited love for obvious reasons. They even level a tongue-in-cheek jab at the prevalent scenesterism in modern punk and hardcore circles in "My Lizzard Had A Keg Party", with a half-sarcastic "Oi Oi Oi!" chorus.

Every now and then a personal moment also shows through; in fact, some of the strongest material on the album occurs when the locker-room humor is set aside. "Stupid Little Things" is an introspective that calls the antagonist on a history of back-stabbing & broken promises, with a chorus that owes more to Elvis Costello than Bad Religion; Kenny Peterson's vocals are also more pure and unaffected here than on any other track on the record. He also serenades, after a somewhat adolescent fashion, with "Mojo", a diamond-in-the-rough love song; there are a few Blink-isms in the vocal phrasing, but still the song is charming in its directness. And on "Bangkok", the very Dag Nasty chorus is a great match with the song's theme of wrestling with depression.

To be fair, there are a few rough spots; Peterson's 's vocals at times have a British adenoidal snottiness to them (most evident on the "whoa whoa" bits) which is really over the top at times. This is probably just a matter of personal taste, but the few songs where it isn't applied seem to be among the most endearing. There's also "Goodbye", an ode to unrequited love and obliviousness with Tawni Freeland and Anj Stevenson handling vocal duties; the rest of the record is so similar in feel and attitude that this track's sunny harmonies, although very capably performed, come off as a little too polite in tone (especially given the subject matter). Finally, question the wisdom behind a 24-song release. It's an exhausting listen which perhaps would have made more sense whittled down to a 12- or 13-song album, leaving material which could have been released on various compilations and split EP's to better effect and broader exposure; the previous EP tracks probably could have been re-recorded or left off the album altogether, if only for their less-than stellar recording quality.

Overall, Alcoholiday is a solid record, a soundtrack for being dumped, making an ass of oneself at the family reunion, pissing off the neighbors at 4:00AM... basically any occasion where you're not taking yourself too seriously. It's not perfect, but it's catchier and funnier than most in its genre and more importantly, it's local boys making good. You might be embarrassed singing some of it in front of your parents, but then again maybe you need to lighten up.

--Chris Wagner