The third full-length from The Methadones and second from the solidified lineup of Dan Vapid (Screeching Weasel / Riverdales / Sludgeworth), Mike Byrne (ex-Vindictives), Pete Mittler, and Mike Soucy finds the band taking a somewhat different route than the band's past endeavors. Not Economically Viable, an album loosely based on the movie Falling Down (in which a disgruntled office worker takes revenge on those causing his disposition), takes cues from both classic punk (yes, they still channel the Ramones a good deal) and the mature side of early 90s Lookout pop, both likely due to Vapid's past projects (see above), and is a little more guitar-driven this time around, with scattered solos thrown about, and devoid of any post-20th century influence whatsoever (yes, the use of parentheses in this paragraph is unnecessarily liberal).

Hower, despite the album being overall a relatively solid, forty-minute chunk of pop-punk, there's some noticable filler in the early-to-mid setting, . Nearly every track on the disc is catchy, even if the record ends up suffering from "every-song-sounds-the-same" syndrome as a result. "Bored Of Television," "Mess We Made," and "Million Miles" are three of the best examples showing off the band's inherent ability to hook you like sidestage cane antics, but to be honest, it's tough to say how much lasting value the record as a whole has. The first couple spins I found myself relatively enjoying the album, if not drifting off around the aforementioned filler parts. Flash foward several listens later, I still drift off towards the same parts, and the ones I enjoy just seem less overwhelming than they were at first. The themes the album claims to have loosely attached itself too are even then a bit abstract to be noticeable - except for "Suddenly Cool," with its comments towards "climbing the social ladder" - and don't do much, if anything at all, to reward close attention to such.

Not Economically Viable is a good album, and perhaps the band's best effort yet, but suffers drastically from a first half in need of serious stitchwork and some tighter threading in the remaining portions.

MP3
Bored Of Television