Punkvoter’s second installment of these CD+DVD comps in their quest to throw down Bush Jr. from his pedestal has the same ingredients as the first one: a couple music video’s, political shorts, comedy pieces and above all the gathering of mostly unreleased songs by some of the finest bands around.

No less than 20 of these 28 tracks are either brand new or live recordings, with the opening song by Green Day as an absolute cracker. It shows why Dookie was an absolute masterpiece and leaves great expectations for their upcoming full-length for every pop-punk lover. Very honorable mentionings go out to lots of these songs. The Lawrence Arms (filthy, yet so cleverly catchy), Lag Wagon (sounding like only they can), The Unseen (combining screaming streetpunk with good melody), Dillinger Four (blasting song!), Useless ID (who with this song sound a bit rougher than I used to know these Israeli’s) and I thought the slow-motion cover by “new superstars” Yellowcard of Lag Wagon’s “Violins” was pretty unexpected yet cool. A couple proper oldies by Rancid and Operation Ivy and a live version of Jawbreaker’s “Chesterfield” pass by, as well as songs by more mainstream bands Foo Fighters (with a pretty raw song) and No Doubt. All in all you could say there’s a pretty good mixture of the different styles our more popular punkbands are producing these days with not only the Fat Wreck-styled bands. There’s also room for Sick Of It All hardcore, poppunk a la Sugarcult, Autopilot Off and Donots, more technical yet good floating punkrock by Hot Water Music and The (International) Noise Conspiracy, fun punk with Flogging Molly and Mad Caddies, some streetpunk with Dropkick Murphys and The Unseen, filthy rock with The Dwarves and even the nowadays inevitable acoustic insert by No Use For A Name (which I thought was pretty mediocre).

The most interesting political short on the DVD is the 30 minute video from Independent Media Center where Amy Goodman of Democracy Now gives you a good impression of the filthy roll the US media are playing in bringing out the news to the people in a way that suits their case. Personally I’m convinced that the interference of politicians in media is one of the major stumbling-blocks to worldpeace. I’d wonder what would happen indeed, like Goodman says, if CNN would show the horrible mutilated men, women and children of bombings instead of the fancy US soldiers with their high-tech gear all day long. The other pieces talk about the internal problems in US military (that are mainly a result of the doubt that is in these soldiers’ minds whether they are indeed serving the right cause, because their employers seem to lie quite a bit and not fully understand the way in which these wars are fought), also the manipulated 2000 elections are questionned, as well as the mysterious and unconstitutional passing of the law that allows US government to put away “assumed” terrorrists in Guantanamo. Really hilarious is the Will Ferrell impersonation of Bush Jr. in his Texas ranch, while there’s also short pieces of stand-up comedians Greg Proops and Patton Oswalt.

As I’ve said before, I’m pretty sure Kerry is not the man either to rid the world of all problems in this world, and right after the dramatic happenings in the Beslan school it’s more than clear that something has to be done to stop these brutal terrorrist crimes. But isn’t it really remarkable that since the day George W (as well as other world-leaders) have declared they would fight this terrorrism the hard way, there’s never been more casualties? People like Bush are just catalysators for these world problems. I know that there’s no easy way to resolve all this, but I am pretty sure that violence, patriottism and greed can’t be the solution. Anyway, in case you’re still in doubt; these comps are what’s needed for every youngster with a brain and a good taste of music.