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(c) 2012 Epitaph Records
Rating: 
I have had a few things on my docket in recent weeks that I said I would review, but I just haven’t done it, and I kept telling myself I have to come up with something, but couldn’t. I just wasn’t inspired enough, I just couldn’t listen and put anything together. Fast forward to today, I had taken the day off work to take my little boy in for vaccinations, and he wasn’t having the best day afterward so we were just sitting around and I came across The Punk News’ exclusive stream of The Menzingers On The Impossible Past and we shared my headphones as we listened.
Maybe it was getting to share the music with my son or the music was really just that good but I started to get a feeling of joy that one only gets when they find something that was truly worth the time spent. From the opening track I was blown away. I started thinking about past albums that may have evoked the same feelings and I thought of albums that I could tell you exactly where I was when I first heard them, Dookie (skateboarding in a friend’s basement in March of ’94), American Idiot (at a New Year’s Eve party in ’05), and The ’59 Sound (in the Toronto Airport waiting for another delayed Air Canada flight in December of ’09). I don’t know why this particular thought crossed my mind, but as the stream continued to play and we sat listening it started to become more apparent that this very album may turn to be the 4th on that list.
Top to bottom the album is stunning, lyrics, vocals, guitar, drums, everything. I think I will skip my standard picking out of stand-out tracks and just say that I love them all. While the title might seem to imply that it is impossible to bring back the past, but after listening today I would have to beg to differ and say that no matter where you are or what you are doing when you listen to this it will invoke some sort of memory, and maybe play a part in a new one.
T.J.
You can now stream The Menzingers Epitaph Records debut On The Impossible Past by going to: http://www.punknews.org/article/46191