I still have a warm spot for b-sides and collections releases. Usually, they add a certain amount of clarity and closure to a band’s scattered discography. This might not be true in the future, when the need for these kinds of releases will be mitigated by the existence of everything a band has ever released being through digital services, but in the present, a 25 song release like Prototypes and Painkillers is an essential romp through the vestiges of STRUNG OUT’s outstanding career.

Like most collection releases, the sequencing to Prototypes and Painkillers adheres mostly to putting the band’s best food forward first. Not surprisingly, this includes material from arguably the band’s most active period of 1998 – 2002, featuring such songs as “Novacain,” (from the comp “Live Fat, Die Young”), the smoldering “Lost Motel” (a popular demo and 7″ b-side), one of my personal STRUNG OUT faves, the band’s cover of “Bark at the Moon,” from “Punk Goes Metal.” I tend to view that cover as a turning point for the band’s metal influences, and between that song and “Betrayal,” (which is also on here), it’s crystal clear to see how the band that penned Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues morphed into the group that would come to write Exile in Oblivion. Hearing a very early iteration of the band do justice to THE DESCENDENTS’ “I’m Not A Loser,” is a thrill, as is the demo version of “Wrong Side of the Tracks,” which features drummer extraordinaire Josh Freese temporarily handling the acrobatic percussive duties. The rawness of the recording exposes STRUNG OUT’s stunning technical precision, something that I think tends to gets lost on some of the band’s more recent outings.

As with any release that includes demo recordings from nearly 20 years, there are some fidelity struggles, especially on the pre-Another Day In Paradise material, but a healthy mastering job at least keeps volumes level (a positive characteristic that might be lost in the future if these kinds of collections become extinct). And notably, Prototypes and Painkillers wouldn’t feel nearly as personal without its paragraph song descriptions for each track. Charting song histories and funny anecdotes when relevant, STRUNG OUT’s lengthy, 20-year run comes alive with points of interest written by drummer Jordan Burns and guitarist Jake Kiley. After spending a considerable amount of time with Prototypes and Painkillers, you begin to get the feeling that the band enjoyed putting this together as much as fans were clamoring to reach a new level of song completion.

Fat Wreck

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