It’s the start of fall and my semester is packed. On the road to fulfillment, I’m sure. Optimistic bullshit aside, I’m fucking busy. Combine that with free refills at the cafe downstairs and you get this: short & choppy, black & white, and loud — very loud.

This is where the Descendents’ Milo Goes to College comes in handy. Quick, brutal punk songs, meant for the straightforward and single-minded. Expressionless, bespectacled, crisp — more words to describe the odd nature of this album (and my current mood). 15 songs in 23 minutes. Get it done and move on with it.

43 seconds. It may seem brief, but it’s enough to grant a nice little burst of raw energy. What’s nice about “I Wanna Be A Bear” is its ability to compress a full song into that tiny little package with little to no loss of depth. You can even pull neat little quotes from its verses like, “You’ll get old and have a wrinkled ass!” Cheeky.

Conversely, “Catalina” shows the band’s ability to still use complex elements in a relatively small timeframe. Well, kind of small. They use more than twice the time than “I Wanna Be A Bear,” clocking in at 1:48 — practically cheating. Anyone could put spoken word, narratives, social commentary and four or five distinct song sections within 2 minutes. … Right?

And that’s really it. There’s not much left to expound on — it’s just a solid, straight-ahead punk album. It might be a little less angry than its peers, but it sneers just as much — from behind black font on a white field. Sometimes it’s the most understated things that work the best.

Artist: Descendents
Album: Milo Goes To College
Year: 1982
Tracklist & Review (Allmusic)

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