No Matter How Long the Line Is at the Cafeteria, ...＜Colored Vinyl＞

The Big Boys' final album, once again produced by Spot and featuring their now-regular horn section, has the foursome bowing out with erratic style and constantly predicting the future. Having already pioneered a punk and funk combination just by existing, playing with a guest turntablist on the heavy funk of "Common Beat" beats most late-'90s sports-metal acts to the punch by 15 years, not to mention doing so with rather more talent and brains! Still, of the band's three full studio records, No Matter... is the most fractured, if wide-ranging. Whether it was the individual interests of the members pulling the group in various directions or a group decision to try anything and see what stuck, sometimes there's less of the Big Boys here and more stuff that other bands could have done just as easily. Other times, though, trying something else had beneficial effects; though it sounds like the Boys had spun some Husker Du before recording it, "Which Way to Go" is still an underrated gem, and it's also the closest the band every got to power pop. Turner continues to serve up vocal fire throughout the album without hesitation, though sometimes he sounds more like a hoarser imitator. Everything sounds fine as always, if just not quite as distinct as before. Washam's drumming is faultless, happily, and Gates and Kerr never sound too bad. As always, the songs drawing more on the funk side of things are the more memorable pieces, and sometimes for more reasons than one. Hearing Kerr take the spoken/sung lead on "I Do Care," for example, instead of Turner is a slight surprise, but it still works. "What's the Word" revives the funky call-and-response fire of many an earlier Big Boys song, while "Work" wraps up the album and the Boys' recording career with one last sharp groove blast, going down against the nine-to-five world fighting. ~ Ned Raggett