REVIEW: No Sleep Records’ ‘A Comp For Mom’

Artists: La Dispute, The Wonder Years, Allison Weiss, et al
Title: A Comp For Mom
Label: No Sleep Records

“I love you, Mom. Say ‘hi’ to Dad for me.” – Chris Hansen

Honoring the wonderful life his mother lived, Chris Hansen of No Sleep Records and a bunch of his best musical friends have teamed up to give us A Comp For Mom. This 15-track compilation consists of slow and steady rock & roll jams, ranging from covers of iconic songs to acoustic versions to unreleased B-sides from some of the included artists’ various records.

Starting off with a Beatles cover of “In My Life,” Allison Weiss does a beautiful job of setting up the record’s tone and vibe. Her sweet vocals and simple instrumentals make for a very original, folk/indie take on this famous song. Another cover of a well-known song follows the opening track. Tennessee quintet, Daisyhead, covered Jimmy Eat World’s “Work.” Overly distorted and under-ornamented, this cover wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t terrible either. I suppose fans will be glad that they slipped a decent JEW cover in there to add onto the twelve other versions of the same song in their iTunes library. To keep the ball rolling, solo artist Grey Gordon covered covers, Dag Nasty’s “Safe.” This cover dented the dynamic a bit, breaking away from the steady, easygoing rock & roll vibe and adding a more edgy touch.

Leave it to Into It. Over. It. to put us right back where we were in the beginning. Beautifully crafted, Evan Weiss’ track, entitled “For Agnes,” was solely acoustic and encapsulated the lyrical essence of this compilation, something the songs prior to it hadn’t quite captured. The acoustic version of “Montreal” by Major League also shares the same characteristics, except this was a lot more edgy and less laid-back. Moose Blood also contributed to this compilation and released a 2014 version of “Orlando.” “Neighbors” by Now Now shared the same dynamic as Allison Weiss’ track. This was very mellow and simple, smoothing out the pace after a couple of more rock and roll pieces earlier on. “Possibilities,” an unreleased B-Side from The Swellers was also a part of this record. I enjoyed this track a lot as it was also easy to take in and did not require much effort to appreciate.

The final track on this compilation was the track that it seems everyone looked forward to most; the full band version of The Wonder Years‘ “Living Room Song” off of their record Suburbia: I’ve Given Up On You. The band replaces NFG from the original lyric, “I’m going to bed tonight in my New Found Glory hoodie,” with “Modern Baseball” which left a lot of people very stoked. This would have been a more solid ending had it been preceded by tracks of similar, more upbeat dynamics, as opposed to the more relaxed-sounding tracks that came before it.

Although it would have been nice to have a greater amount of coherence lyrically or genre-wise, this compilation was overall a nice collection of good tracks, separately. A Comp For Mom would definitely make a mother extremely proud of her son and his friends.

SCORE: 7.5/10
Review written by Dana Reandelar

Dana Reandelar
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