I first came across NOFX in a friend's car almost a decade ago. They were brash, potty-mouthed, loud...and I loved them to death. Ten years have passed, and while they should have grown out of that phase, NOFX are still noisy punks and I still love them. Pump Up the Valuum opens with "And Now For Something Completely Similar" -- and with their catchy anthems, that's just fine. With songs like "My Vagina," which expresses regrets over the consequences of a sex change, and "Theme From a NOFX Album", which contains the mature chorus "Buy me a Beck's Beer/ Or pass me a bong/ Gimme some Bushmills/ I'll sing you this song", the boys are still as stupid and fun-loving as ever.

However, hints of maturity do peek out. "What's the Matter With Parents Today?" can be read as a child's questioning of his parents' supposed cool ("Mom and Dad, how'd ya get so rad/ When exactly did you get so hip/ Wearing teenage clothes/ You're always coming to my shows"). Alternatively, the song could be an aging punk's introspection on whether he has the right to act as young as he still feels. True to this idea is "Clams Have Feelings Too (Actually They Don't)" which in punk fashion criticizes everyone else's age group by declaring "Birds are dumb ‘cause [of] small bird brains/ But so are kids and old people." Even the obligatory anti-music industry track "Dinosaurs Will Die" derides VH1 instead of MTV, revealing the band's age demographic.

However you choose to interpret things, Pump Up the Valuum is a great punk album with plenty of punch to satisfy the kids raging in front of the stage and enough melody for us geezers grinning in the back of the room.