Artist: The Best of the Worst
Album: New Dead Ends
Released: September 19, 2025; Bad Time Records
Best of the Worst, I think at this point can be considered veterans of the New Jersey music scene. “New Dead Ends” is their second release on Bad Time Records, but they’ve been making stellar Skacore jams since 2008. Personally, I have been a big fan since the last release “Better Medicine.” Their propensity to present social commentary flung at you with hard and fast instrumentals is endearing. This new release is no different.
Musically, “Curtain Call” is absolutely fantastic. Hands down my favorite song on the album. The synthy little bit at the intro of the song that melds seamlessly into the horns as they come in, is perfection. It tickles the part of my brain that runs solely on 90’s Nintendo nostalgia. Liz Facklemen’s vocal performance here is amazing and powerful. The contrast it provides against the angry screamy bits is definitely a pleasure. It also happens to be best example of aforementioned social commentary, as well. The song deals with the the experiences of women in the music scene that are horrifyingly all too common. It’s unfortunate when very small men get a minute amount of power; they use it to become predators. The song calls out this behavior and talks about how in the aftermath, the individual victims rarely have the power to dole out consequences. A sad reality. However, in vocalizing these experiences, what this song really does is give us, the music community, a choice to do something about it, moving forward. We don’t have to support known abusers. We don’t have to book them for shows or buy their tickets. And perhaps, if late at night these types of guys run into trouble in a parking lot, we can look the other way and pretend we didn’t see anything. That is after all the kind of culture abusers prefer and rely on. We can in fact choose to watch the legacy of abusers decompose. We just have chose to do it together.
Another song that really stuck with me is “Running Out of Time”. It is a slower paced reggae jam about how we often get so caught up in the monotony of life that it passes us by. I think the song heavily implies the question: “Is it worth putting off the truly important things (whatever that means to you) to continue to grind though life’s busy work “crossing t s and dotting i s?”. In my mind, the thing that is truly great about the song is that the smooth tempo and chill beat serves up this Socratic wisdom with a matter of fact vibe. Rather than being a anxiety inducing hyper-fast ‘you better get off your ass and live before you die’ type hardcore song. Which I suppose would have also gotten the message across, albeit in a way that I believe would have been less impactful.
Last is the song “Misogyny”. At the risk of perhaps alienating some people; I am not a big hardcore fan. Let me explain before you get the pitchforks out. I don’t consider myself a hardcore fan because telling me something is hardcore will never inspire me to check it out solely for that reason. Now that being said, this is the kind of hardcore song I like. It’s got that social commentary that I am a fan of. The guitars are ripping and the cadence of the vocal performance right before it transitions to the second half of the song is absolutely sublime.
With “New Dead Ends”, The Best of the Worst have provided listeners with a robust and varied experience featuring an engineered blend of genres and sounds that only the veterans they are could have delivered. If you are a fan of Ska, Hardcore, or anything that sits between those two genres I think you should definitely give this album a listen.
If you like the album I reviewed here and want to support the artist as well as this blog please consider picking up the album via this affiliate link—>Purchase New Dead Ends by The Best of the Worst digitally via Amazon Music
