By Tom Westoll

25 years, 25 minutes. Chixdiggit’s new EP is a celebration of the road all jammed into one epic song. A giant shout out to the touring road life, K.J. Jansen, main songwriter of the Calgary band, has more or less turned one of his tour diaries into an album. There are at least 16 places visited in the song, which, at nearly 25 minutes is an attempt at overthrowing NOFX’s “The Decline” as the longest punk song ever recorded.

With Chixdiggit on tour across most of Canada in support of the EP, ironically (or not, I’m not able to actually define irony), they hit Winnipeg on the same day as the venerable San Fran punks whose label (Fat Wreck) has long been Chixdiggit’s record label.

2012 is classic in almost every way that Chixdiggit does things. The album artwork is a cheeky riff on the Rush 2112 album cover done in the standard illustration style we’ve come to expect from them.

The album is full of clever lyrics (attention, Grant Lawrence fans: There is a shout out to The Smugglers) and whoa-oh- oh’s. There are hockey references  –of course –, there are love songs (Jansen has been known to say “this is a love song” to introduce every second song at their shows) and there is a solid, steady beat to accompany the wall of distorted guitars played at the standard pace we know and love Chixdiggit to perform at.

Sometimes, when a band releases a new album or does a tour for their 25th anniversary, it feels pretty stale, regurgitated and unoriginal, or it’s a greatest hits album with 3 new studio tracks tacked onto the end. Nobody goes to the concert wanting to hear the new songs. Chixdiggit completely avoids that – I can’t wait to go to the show and hear the new tunes. I wanna sing along to “Du… Dusseldorf!” or “the populace of Calgary is just over a million plus/I still get asked if we would leave but the city has been good to us”.

*temporary flowery language alert* Chixdiggit is the summer of our youth – a perfect and familiar memory of a sunny feeling that we are constantly seeking to have again. It’s what drives us.It does not matter the season or the reason – throw on some Chixdiggit and let’s have some fun.

Listen to 2012 here or stream it below. You can get it here – or hit the merch table when Chixdiggit plays in your city.