DESCENDENTS - Hypercaffium Spazzinate LP

Like Everything Sucks and Cool to Be You before it, Hypercaffium Spazzinate showcases a version of Descendents that’s visibly but not audibly older. The group is no less energetic here than they were during their heyday, blasting off furious two-minute burners like “Victim of Me” and “Full Circle” (a song whose only chronological signifier is a reference to cell phone reception) while staying surprisingly light on their feet.Fortunately, Descendents have grown up in some ways that matter. Rather than slap together some songs in the studio and simply call it a day, as they essentially did with 1985’s I Don’t Want To Grow Up, they’ve practiced patience and waited to arrive at 16 songs that feature either airtight pop melodies or a throwback to the fury of their early days. Never before have those two facets of the band’s personality merged so seamlessly on record, with straightforward hardcore anthems (“Testosterone”, “Human Being”) existing side-by-side with pure, unadulterated expressions of pop punk (“On Paper”, “Smile”). The songs here are notably tighter than on 2004’s Cool to Be You, which explains why they seem to linger in the memory even after just a few listens.