In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that I have been a Dance Hall Crashers fan for seven years so this review is probably somewhat biased. But then again, albums such as this make it easy to justify my pro-DHC stance. The "ska-punk" label probably best describes their music, but such a categorization ignores the incredible pop hooks which make every song a treasure. It is simply impossible to listen to their albums without dancing about like a blissful fool.

The sextet is fronted by the double-barrelled singing of Elyse Rodgers and Karina Deniké, who vocally spar with one another and drive the music to dizzying heights of pop perfection. Rounding out the band are Jason Hammon (guitar), Scott Goodell (guitar), Gavin Hammon (drums) and Mikey Weiss (bass), all of whom supply superior skills to these three-minute gems.

This particular record finds the band live and on stage, where their already upbeat songs somehow find additional levels of energy. This group is so much fun, they make topics like poverty ("We Owe") and fist-fights ("Cat Fight") sound like natural subjects for pop numbers. Their exuberance is perhaps best exemplified by "Don't Wanna Behave," a self-explanatory song on which the audience provides gleeful back-up singing. Most of the music keeps up a furious pace, although a couple of tracks ("He Wants Me Back" and "Cricket") provide slower, sweeter moments. Even here however, Karina and Elyse's delightful brattiness shows through in choruses like "He wants me back/ But he can't have me/ He wants me back/ There's no denying/ He wants me back/ He's on his knees/ Now we'll see who's crying."

Included in the set list, which touches on all of their albums, is a break-neck version of Tom Petty's "American Girl" which, unlike the original's droopy delivery, revels in its sad tale.

This twenty-five song rave-up captures a stellar band in their prime. As I said, I may be biased, but one listen to this album will explain why.