Artist:     The Muffs

Album:     No Holiday

Label:     Omnivore Recordings

Release Date:     10.18.19

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Through streaming tears shed over the heartbreaking loss of The Muffs’ Kim Shattuck, there will be brave smiles, too. The charming punk imperfections and unabashed power-pop sweetness of No Holiday, the band’s first new album in five years, could at the very least temporarily shut off the waterworks. They are rays of light breaking through a shuttered room during this indefinite period of mourning, however gut-wrenching it is now to feel their warmth.

Like secret love letters found among the personal effects of the dearly departed, these 18 songs were written by Shattuck between 1991 and 2017, but scrapped for reasons of economy, although they would have improved any of The Muffs’ past records – as great as they were. With their shaggy, lo-fi intimacy and lovely acoustic simplicity, melodic ballads such as the wistful “A Lovely Day Boo Hoo,” “The Best” and “Happier Just Being With You” are easy to fall for, their pure and innocent expressions of love and romantic idealism left as rare gifts for Shattuck’s survivors. A fitting sendoff, the bare-bones closer “Sky” looks up and sees beauty and wonder in the world and is astonished by it, just as the rest of us can marvel at the classic pop sensibilities of “You Talk and You Talk.”

Eternally youthful, or so it seemed, the scrappy sounds created by Shattuck and The Muffs always managed to mix angst and witty sarcasm with blissful, childlike naivete and joy, eschewing stuffy maturity in favor of untamed, delightfully exuberant outbursts. Their insanely catchy brand of pop-punk never seemed to age. Times after time, while growing older, they still managed to summon the raw energy and carefree spirit of adolescence. No Holiday is no different, as Shattuck again dipped into her bottomless bag of hooks and pulled out a heaping handful of them. Word has it that while struggling with the effects of ALS she oversaw the making of No Holiday every step of the way. Perhaps she knew her time was short.

And yet there is no sense of desperation here, no feeling that the recording was rushed. Even the sparseness of some pieces seems intentional, as if that’s the best possible environment for those songs to breathe and live. Fully realized garage-rock productions such as the all-too-brief “That’s For Me” also thrive. Wielding serrated guitar riffs, Shattuck joins with bandmates Roy McDonald on drums and bassist Ronnie Barnett in deliriously bashing out “Down Down Down” and “The Kids Have Gone Away,” while the scruffy “Pollyanna” and “On My Own” are undeniably feisty and fun. That loveable scamp “Lucky Charm” is also adorably feral, as “Sick of This Old World” rolls around in the Beatles-inspired grungy slop of Nirvana, the title track turns a bit mean and the contemplative “Earth Below Me” is Shattuck at her most vulnerable and sincere. No Holiday is a great eulogy.

—Peter Lindblad