It’s a tough gig, the post-reunion comeback album. Seems to function very much like the arid badlands of a music ‘career’. Many have been there; few have come back alive. So, how fare The Oblivians, a group who often made a virtue of sounding like they had no idea what the fuck they were doing even back in their glory-days, riding a wave of belligerent aggression and random, hard-livin’ noise through a series of records so accidentally brilliant that they emerged by default as pretty much the best punk band of the ‘90s…?

Well, to be honest, chances of them managing to recapture that same spirit twenty years down the line seem pretty slim, but thankfully they’ve got a different, none-more-Oblivians ace up their sleeve: namely, the fact that they couldn’t give a fuck about doing that.

So yeah - anyone expecting a disc that sits happily alongside ‘Popular Favorites’ and ‘Soul Food’ will be heading straight for disappointment here. Is it as good as the old stuff..? Well, no, obviously, but the point is, it’s not really trying to be. With two additional decades of music-playin’, business, family, friendship behind them, it would frankly be quite worrying if these guys were still bringing the kind of fuck-everything chaos heard in their early work, and it’s good that they don’t tarnish their dignity by trying to force it.

No, instead this is a cleaner, more easy-going Oblivians by a factor of 10. Recording is done competently by someone who knows how to record stuff, and melody and lyrical good humour predominate. So you’re saying it’s gone all middle-aged..? Fuck no! Mainly it just sounds fun, and good - the sound of three friends going into a room with two guitars and a drum-set and banging out a bunch of tunes, leaving anyone else’s expectations at the door. And sure, the results aren’t perfect – there’re a few duds scattered through, a few misguided attempts to hook up with old formulas – but the basic, instrument-swappin’ set-up and non-professional drumming keeps things grounded nicely, and with almost all the cuts clocking in below the two minute mark, there’s little room for ego or ambition to start doing any damage.

Furthermore, the song-writing is frequently top-notch, meaning that the song-by-song hit rate here remains high, reflecting the strengths of three separate writers who all have their own neat little thing going on. ‘Pinball King’ and ‘Little War Child’ are totally sweet glam stomps that could have come straight from the songbook of someone like King Tuff or Nobunny; ‘Come a Little Closer’ and ‘Loving Cup’ (not a ‘Stones cover) are convincing bits of bluesy swagger that veer toward Greg Cartwright/Oblivian’s work with The Reigning Sound; ‘I’ll Be Gone’ is a reassuringly vitriolic put-down of Pitchfork-ish indie celebrity (“your dreams have nothing to do with mine”), and ‘Woke Up In A Police Car’ is a text book demonstration of Pink Flag-esque punk rock efficiency that will stick in your heads for days. All quite different, all keepers.

The acid test for any reunion album of course is to take a step back and ask yourself how well it would stand up if it was by someone you’d never heard of, rather than a gang of returning heroes. Happy to say, ‘Desperation’ passes with honours: if this was a debut album by some out-of-nowhere garage-punk band, I’d rate it as a solid, characterful and super-fun effort and look forward to hearing what they came up with next. Reunion badlands successfully traversed!

I realise these guys all probably have better things to do than spending the rest of their lives cashing in on their old band name, but Oblivians 2.0 is lookin’ good so far, and I for one would be happy to see ‘em continue to make a go of it.

Listen via Youtube, and pick up from wherever you normally go for In The Red stuff.

Labels: best of 2013, The Oblivians