Pitchfork

[Posted Thursday, October 23rd, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

During my novice years as a music lover, I knew the Descendents by their recognizable album covers: "Oh yeah, they've got that cartoon guy with the glasses on all their CDs, right?" Well, sorta: my first real introduction was in my sophomore year of high school. I purchased Milo Goes To College and listened to it on my twelve-dollar Walkman until the cassette melted in my piano teacher's car. After that I kinda forgot about them.

And with a seven year studio drought since Everthing Sucks, unless you're a hard-core Descendents junkie you probably haven't thought about them much. But come January 2004, the legendary punk rockers will release a new EP, with an album following closely behind in March. Who's putting on this puppet show? Why, none other than Fat Wreck Chords! Words can't describe my disgust with these guys, so I'll skip all the NOFX put-downs and Lagwagon jokes and just simply state that I'm disappointed (however, I do approve of Fat's zaftig Les Toil mascot).

Twenty newly recorded songs will be split between the album and EP, though no official titles or tracklist have emerged. One of these is a new recording of the song "Lucky," which was a b-side to their single "I'm The One" back in 1996.

Finally, if you were all excited about the rumored All/Descendents combined instrumental endeavor, just relax-- that project's been pushed aside to give the new releases some breathing room.