D.O.A.-Kings of punk, hockey and beer

Sudden Death
2009

Canadian punk rock legends D.O.A have already released a studio album and a DVD in the last year and a half, but now the also throw out this kind of theme oriented compilation. It's made up of previously released tracks from Win the battle, Loggerheads, Northern Avenger and even one from Joey Keithley's solo album Band of rebels. That makes up about 3/4 of the album and also there are two previously unreleased songs and a pair of new ones recorded this year. So as the title implies we do get some drinking related songs like Beer liberation army and Cocktail from hell. Of course they throw out even more songs about their favorite sport as we get a version of Tom Connors' Hockey song and DOA's 2008 song the blazing Donnybrook. I guess a lot of the rest falls under just the punk rock heading of the title. I have thought of DOA's songs about being more about anarchy and anti-establishment than being about their favorite past times. Then against the bulk of the songs here are from more recent albums so I guess their interests and topics of focus have changed a little over the years. No matter what they talk about in their songs I think that this legendary band has always done what they wanted to do and that means a great deal. They always manage to get themselves fired up and just go at it. That approach has been a large part about what appeals to me about them. I am not sure if there was a great need for this collection, but they did toss in some tracks we have never heard before. Perhaps more than anything I enjoyed this disc even though I had heard the majority of it before. It doesn't represent necessarily the best of DOA, but the songs do represent the spirit of why DOA have been able to keep going for so long.