Squirtgun - Another Sunny Afternoon (1997)

It's gotta be hard to have a voice that is so over-the-top that it borders on unlistenable. This is the downfall of Squirtgun, who you may know from the Mallrats soundtrack, as they sang the opening credits jam "Social." When I was first getting into pop-punk the voice was really tough to get past, but when I received a review copy of this for my old 'zine it just came blazing out of the gate so well that the voice seemed more and more charming with each track.

I don't understand what it is about what it is about early-90's Lookout Records pop-punk, but it seems like every record put out in this period was pretty much a classic. Another Sunny Afternoon starts out faaaaaast with "Field Trip" and the wall-of-guitars/direct-springy-bass production just screams 1995 but that's alright. This is followed with a handful of songs about girls and the fabulous "Butterbean," a simple slow pop song that for some reason kills me every time I listen to it. I guess it's tough to follow such a strong opening set of songs up, and for a bit of it, Squirtgun can't really, venturing into a terrible ska song (hey, remember the 90's?), one or two boring straight forward rockers, and a retread of "Butterbean" that just isn't as good.

Now, that's not to say this record is bad. Sure, the voice is a bit grating, the bass is overplayed and the second half of the record isn't as good as the first half. But from the day-glo cartoon packaging to the production of the record, these songs just jump out of the speakers like a million cans of soda exploding and it's hard not to love it. If Squirtgun were to release this album today it wouldn't go as unnoticed as it did and it would still remain fresh, but it came out at such a good time for pop-punk that it's slight downfalls unfortunatelycaused it to be ignored.