Ho hum. Another year, another Warped Tour compilation. These things have always been a great overview for the uninitiated and more of a status update for everyone else. They always sell tons however, so I'm guessing it does a good job at least attempting to convert the former with every passing volume.

This particular year isn't drastically different from its compatriots. There's a few great bands, a bunch of good ones, and a slew of utter crap, while a number of tracks are taken from forthcoming releases (at least, at the compilation's street date), and 2 in particular are straight unreleased tracks. Those 2 are Anti-Flag's "No Future," a pretty good B-side that I'm guessing is from the sessions for For Blood and Empire; anyone who enjoyed that album should enjoy the song. The other is an acoustic version of Rise Against's "Everchanging," a damn interesting method considering it's taken from the band's hardest, fastest album, their 2001 debut The Unraveling.

Highlights from Disc 1 include Saves the Day, Underoath, Riverboat Gamblers, Moneen, and Somerset, while Disc 2 offers up solid cuts -- besides the aforementioned -- from Against Me!, Bouncing Souls, the Academy Is... (yep), and the Banner; this particular disc does feature a couple cringeworthy power-pop-emo / metalcore bands, though, mostly in succession.

It also seems SideOneDummy was kind enough to give some of the smaller bands some exposure on the release. It's just too bad the results are mixed, pouring over into the "bad" more often than not; Eight Fingers Down produce forgettable mid-`90s skatepunk, Royden nü-emo as seemingly sung by Folly's lead singer, the Expendables barely noticeable punk revival, and the Sunstreak plain awful crap. Scotch Greens does do Bad Religion half-decent, though, while Los Kung Fu Monkeys' brief ska-punk clip, the appropriately titled "Short Fuse" is apt.

One problem with the comp is how scattershot the sequencing is. Unlike last year's edition, or this year's Take Action! benefit where both definitely seemed to group the bands by their respective genres/niches, all the bands are seemingly thrown about for the most part.

For at least thousands and thousands of people, 51 songs for $5 or so is going to be hard to pass up yet again, and for pretty understandable reasons.