Last Laugh

Ashamed Of It (2003)

Brian Shultz

Well, I'd be ashamed of it too if I were them.

Okay, so the title was just begging for that intro; I apologize. But Last Laugh had it coming to them.

It's pretty much just run-of-the-mill, midtempo pop/skate punk with that "all-hope-lost" feeling. They have this pseudo-serious persona they carry through each track, and they have good intentions; "Kill the Klan" is pretty self-explanatory, and "Birds Eye View" degrades common prejudice. But most of the time, the band comes off like your high school guidance counselor lecturing to your homeroom. "STD" and "Roofies" sound like subject titles from a pamphlet called Congratulations, You Have a Teenager.

There's so many damn "whoas" I thought Dexter Holland produced the damn thing. Mind you they ramble just as long, too; 15
tracks totaling 50 minutes is a hell of a stretch for the genre.

The aforementioned "all-hope-lost" feeling is constant, but on the wrong songs. "Roofies" sounds goofy and happy all at once, even if the lyrics sound like a forewarning; I must be out of the loop if date rape is what makes for cheerful topics these days. Don't get me wrong - I think we're all well aware that in both eras (classic - Dead Kennedys' "Kill the Poor," modern - NoFx's "She's Nubs"), it's common for punk songs to tackle at least semi-controversial issues with lyrics/themes that sound completely different from the silly or sarcastic mood they're conveying. When Last Laugh do it, it's a horrendous inconsistency from the central themes of the rest of the album, because they're sincere in all the other places. They're not
going for shock value, it's just a terrible lapse in the disc's flow. Even the "solo" in this song, if we can call it that, is horribly out of place. It sounds like someone else in my dorm just put on a completely different CD or song; the first couple of times I heard it I seriously had to look around and double-check.

Of course, what I should've done unlike the band is put it short and simple - "pass."

MP3s
"Define Destiny"
"STD"