GOOD RIDDANCE:
Capricorn One (Singles & Rarities): CD
I saw Good Riddance play at Portland’s X-Ray Café sometime in the early nineties. I want to say they were touring on the strength of a demo, but I’m not sure. I do remember I was stoked and they were a great, powerful hardcore band. While they’d go on to release a veritable ton of stuff over their nearly two decades together, nothing comes close (for me) to touching their first LP, For God and Country. Good Riddance, like many on the Fat and Epitaph rosters of the time, were responsible—for better or worse—for creating and sustaining the particular genre known as “melodic hardcore.” The style certainly had its weak points, but I always thought Good Riddance fared better than most —they tempered their unabashedly cheesy love ballads with some reasonably well-articulated political howls, and the music was almost always on the right side of pissed off. Capricorn One serves as a nice siren song for the band, and a treat for completists— like the name implies, it’s full of comp tracks, unreleased demos, outtakes, and the stuff from their splits with Reliance, Ensign, Ill Repute, and Ignite. Vocalist Russ Rankin provides lyrics and little anecdotes for each of the twenty-one songs and the whole thing lends one last punch to the jaw from a band that was important to a lot of people. –Keith Rosson (Fat)