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For my money Floorpunch’s “Fast Times At The Jersey Shore”is everything I ask for in an lp by a pure straight edge hardcore band. Over the years (I know people say this all the time but - I can’t believe its been 10 years!) I’ve heard some people kind of dismiss this lp as being maybe too long (it’s only 20 minutes!), or that it’s too after the fact. But from my point of view, and maybe it’s a little rose colored, this has all the good aspects of the band’s demo and 7″, as well as bringing just enough new things to the table.

Right off the bat, the first track, Washed Up At 18, comes with a riff faster than almost anything they’d done before, and I think a lot of people remember this album as the fast Floorpunch record. Maybe that’s part of what I like about it, that they incorporate more Straight Ahead and Youth of Today style speed into the mix. I think FP sounds pretty great playing songs designed to drop their payloads in the quickest way possible, leaner than some of the tracks they’d done in the past. About a third of them clock in at under a minute. The rest are a little longer, usually around a minute and a half, all of them are stacked with maximum mosh-part potential. Playing this thing back now, some of the tracks are a tad more tuneful and anthemic than maybe their other stuff had too, and maybe some people are put off by that, but I say - what’s not to like about songs like Shotsie or What’s Right.  

A lot of straight edge bands at the time started trying to incorporate more complex and melodic parts into their songs. Actually I feel like the first In My Eyes lp (no diss on them; still a fav.) made a big wave of imitators, all far inferior, that tried to use similar arrangements, but with usually tepid results. Looking back to the time period (which was when I was first taking an interest in these type of bands) it seems like by the time the Floorpunch lp was released, no one else was content to play meat and potatoes type Straight Edge HC like the Judge 7″,  SOIA 7″, early War Zone,  et. al. It’s kind of a bummer because who the hell wants to listen to like some bargain bin band copying Fastbreak. At any rate it leaves FP kind of standing alone as the only band from the ‘96 explosion besides Ten Yard Fight that stuck it out to the end without trying to be anything other than a straight forward hardcore band. They’re also, (along with the aforementioned In My Eyes) probably the only band of the style and era who had a drummer who really ripped. Nothing worse than a weak drummer, and I love the chops on this lp. Makes cool use of the double kick pedal in fills too.

There’s like… 100 copies of this LP on white I think? Most went out to friends if I have my info right. Start to finish, this one’s all aces for the 90’s, or any era.