Heavy Petting Zoo by NOFX Review

I love all sorts of music, and one of the bands that I’m just now getting into is called NOFX. A friend of mine recently lent me one of NOFX’s CDs, “Heavy Petting Zoo,” an album that I pretty much immediately liked, and one that I continued to like even after I had already listened to it several times. To me, re-playability is one of the most important aspects of CDs, and “Heavy Petting Zoo” definitely had re-playability. 

My friend told me that “Heavy Petting Zoo” doesn’t exactly sound like the rest of NOFX’s works; apparently this album is a bit lighter than the band’s others, but I still liked it. Not having a basis for comparison isn’t always bad.

Classic Rock is one of my all-time favorite genres, and that means that I’m a girl that goes crazy for a good guitar solo. Well, “Heavy Petting Zoo” definitely delivered there, this album is full of them! There’s definitely a difference between a guitar solo and a good guitar solo though…the ones in this album are all good, if not great! “Heavy Petting Zoo” also features a pretty knock-out bass line too, and I most certainly appreciated that! The drums aren’t bad, in fact they’re good, but I wouldn’t say that the drum work here is anything to really write home about. Of all of the instruments on the album, the bass definitely steals the show. All of the instrumentals are clear and get listeners grooving to the beat. 

Some of the songs on “Heavy Petting Zoo” seemed to be moderately political, something that it seems like more and more bands are doing these days, especially alternative ones, and I like it. Songs such as “Freedom Lika Shopping Cart” certainly have moderate political tones. To me, the majority of the songs on the album seemed to be something of love songs, or else satirical or comedic. 

My favorite track on this album was definitely “Black and White.” Another semi-political song, “Black and White” is a song without a chorus. The lyrics here are delightfully catchy and stick with listeners. The vocalist’s voice has great range and the instrumentals are memorable. 

For me, the worst song on “Heavy Petting Zoo” was “Whatever Didi Wants,” which was incredibly repetitive, so much so that I only really listened to it twice. I generally skip it when listening to the album now. The instrumentals here are also almost overbearing, and I find them to be obnoxious. 

Overall, I found this to be an incredibly likable album. After listening to “Heavy Petting Zoo” multiple times, I still did not tire of the album. Actually, it is now my intent to look into other albums by NOFX. The quality of the album is incredible; both as far as instrumentals as well as lyrics go. There is some swearing on the album, but nothing that’s too bad, but kids should probably get their parent’s permission before they listen to it. I do recommend this album, but only to people with an open mind to new-sounding musicians, this is definitely not an album for die-hard country or jazz fans!


Pros: great instrumentals as well as guitar solos, good voice range, solid lyrics.

Cons: repetitive at times.

/ [Nioniel]

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