Something Green and Leafy This Way Comes

On Something Green & Leafy This Way Comes, Mr. Chi Pig and his SNFU cohorts take a 90-degree musical turn and head straight for pop-punk parkway. A one-time affair with hardcore's sweet sister of mercilessly chipper hooks and ready-for-prime-time layered alt-metal guitars, this foray into the land of guilt and money-galled purists with its giant-tortoise pace and sticky melodies. It gets so bad on near-ballads like "Joni Mitchell Tapes" that listeners might confuse one of punk's most revered bands with a run-of-the-mill '90s post-grunge knockoff. These moments are few and far between, but fans still have to wonder exactly what the band was thinking. While Pig's stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach is as erratic as usual, an overall pop texture still dominates the recording. While SNFU had always infused small amounts of pop to fine affect in their influential recordings, one never forgot that they were listening to a hardcore opus. The band took excessive pop liberties on Something Green & Leafy Tthis Way Comes, and in doing so lost their hardcore focus and created some of their least enjoyable material.