For those not in on the joke, Me First… produce albums of punk cover versions of popular songs, taking on the world a genre at a time and treating ’classics’ to a Sid Vicious-style double-time rendering. They are, on one level, a ’super-group’ in their own right but, on another, they are a bunch of guys slacking-off and getting drunk in their basement (quite why members of NOFX or Lagwagon find it necessary to slack off from their day-jobs in order to play in a poorly-rehearsed and inebriated band is the million dollar question but, like NOFX, their goofy slackeryness is strangely compelling and, besides, they’re funny). The Joke (that the song is being played in double-time, with lots of Bad Religion-style oohs and aahs and the occasional profanity tossed in for good measure) is surprisingly enduring but song selection and performance varies in their judgement and execution respectively.

Country & Western is, then, an exciting new frontier (heh) for Me First… to explore. Punks’ traditional antipathy towards rednecks and their music coupled with their flirtations with bluegrass, rockabilly and, above all, Johnny Cash, set this album up for the mixture of irreverence and celebratory irony which should produce a great set of punk covers. The only problem is that Me First… have clearly just picked songs that they actually like and turned them into the sort of super-generic punk rock songs that their day-job bands produce on their off days. There is none of the glorious incongruity (yet peculiar appropriateness) to Vicious covering Sinatra in their doing two songs also covered by Cash (“(Ghost) Riders In The Sky” and “Desperado”) or the Dixie Chick’s “Goodbye Earl”, given most punks love Cash and the Dixie Chicks are almost as likely to appear on one of Fat Mike’s “Rock Against Bush” CDs as NOFX themselves. Where is the (desirable) tension in their tackling songs by people who hate them and ruining those songs for people who love them? More importantly, why is their no attempt at some proper hillbilly lead guitar, which can’t help but make you happy when it’s played at speed.

The above objections (or disappointments) out of the way, …Love Their Country is a reasonable enough stab at having and making a bit of fun. The band don’t sound as if they’re enjoying themselves quite as much as on previous releases and this results in a more polished but slightly less interesting recording. Further, their attempt at Jolene isn’t as much fun as either the Sisters of Mercy or the Queen Adreena versions (Goths 2:Punks 0). Nevertheless, “(Ghost) Riders…” is given good treatment - perhaps it was hard not too because it’s such a great song! - and captures the fun of the Cash or Blues Brothers versions. This would make the album a more worthy investment were it not for the fact that it can be downloaded for free from the Fat Wreck website (go on, it’s free). Without wanting to take too seriously a band which is intended to be quite the opposite, I found this record a little redundant.