2 out of 5

Label: No Idea

Producer: Tommy Hamilton (mixing)

Ah, see, it all makes sense now.  Back in the day of days, I was a big LTJ fan, or so I claimed, snatching up what records I could at mall shops, up through ‘Hello Rockview!’, when I got too cool for ska and ditched it all for, I dunno, Modest Mouse or something.  But time passes and blah blah blah and I’ve come to accept that old me and new me actually still have similar tastes, I just care less about what I’m listening to in terms of the impression that it gives off (mostly, I can’t claim to be completely without bias… or I can claim to be… but… italics…), so I’ve re-picked back up somea that stuff that used to bring me such joy, like Slapstick, one of the best ska-punk bands forever ever.  But honestly, I’d forgotten about LTJ.  And I don’t know what reminded me, but something did, and so here I am listening to ‘Losers, Kings…’ again.  …And feeling the same way about it.  That it’s sorta sloppy, and sorta lacking in non-regular punk stuff, and starts great with some great tunes that are produced rather flatly, but then heaves a giant ‘meh’ of three chord standards.  I didn’t have the internet back then, y’know, and maybe I didn’t know how to read liner notes or something, but I totally never realized that it’s a comp album of pre Pezcore singles, accounting for its mad unevenness.  At the time, I just played it off as it being their first album and thus, uh, rough, and ignored the fact that it came out after Pezcore.  I guess I wasn’t so wrong, but this was before my genius-grafts, so I was pretty dumb.

Listening to it now, my ear all like professionally tuned and shit (plus my genius-grafts), I can hear the sound and playing style shift from section to section of the album, and I read about it and sho’ nuff: comp.

I guess it’s wrong to judge early material by a band’s highpoint, but whatever.  If LTJ had stayed purely as a punk group, as about half of ‘Losers’ displays, despite my digging Vinnie’s forever scratchy vocals and – even from this early point – his surprisingly mature lyrics that, sure, do the punk ‘fight for your right’ and street anthem thing but do it with a narrative eye the large majority of those groups lack – despite that, those early tracks are pretty boring.  Ooh, covers.  Original.  BUT, out of 21 tracks, you get about 10 that are immediate pre-cursors to their adapted ska-punk sound, and these are great tracks, and had you been tracking the band through vinyl or EP releases, you were probably happy to have it gathered on one CD.  The rest of it, if you go in knowing its an odds and sods thang, is interesting but not getting re-played any time in the near future.  10 / 21 = 2 out of 5.  MATHS.