There are always going to be people who say that popular music is just about going with the current trends and, fortunately, there will always be bands to prove these fuckers wrong. Punk has had its fair share of criticism for being just about looks and trends, but MXPX kicks everybody’s ass here with a CD to celebrate their 10th anniversary. In these ten years they didn’t only tour around the entire world, but also found time to release ten (!) albums.

Ten Years And Running shows a selection of the songs on these albums. Fans of the band won’t need an introduction, but if you’re not one of the few: MXPX play fast, melodic (dare I say: ‘West Coast’?) punk rock. Lots of three-chord mayhem here, with some slower breaks and choruses in case you run out of breath in the pit. Singer Mike has a pleasant, melodic voice that suits the music well, although he doesn’t give the songs an extra edge in my humble opinion.

Most of MXPX’s records came out on Tooth And Nail Records (so did this comp, actually) which is known for putting out a lot of Christian stuff, and even though MXPX does have a Christian background, you’ll have a pretty damn hard time finding any religious banter in their lyrics.

Lyrics deal with relationships, punk and who knows what. Since almost all of the songs have been released before already, there are no lyrics in the booklet, but it has more pictures than my family album. (By the way, you can put them in chronological order by looking at the increasing amount of tattoos on Mike’s arm! They must have thought this through!)

I’m sure everybody who’s into MXPX will look for some songs that are not on this, but the band managed to come up with a good cross-section of their stuff. I generally like the slower songs a bit more (‘My Mistake’ and ‘My Life Story’ fucking rock!!!), but the faster ones are cool as well. Sound is good as well, I don’t know if they remastered the whole thing, but the old songs sound as good as the newer ones. There are fifteen old and four brand new songs on this piece of plastic, so hardcore fans might find something to their liking as well here. Good effort.