I had to laugh when I read the title of this cd: ‘In the dog house. The best and the rest’. I laughed because the only Dog Eat Dog song I’ve ever heard, that was remotely good, is the album opener ‘No Fronts’ which also closes the album as a ‘Not Pearl Jam Mix’. I’m sure most people remember the incredible(?) hook in the chorus “no blunts, no tricks, no soapbox politics…” I beleive, there were three further singles and a couple of DED albums that followed THE single, all of which seemed to vanish into a vacuum of records with Babylon Zoo, Ian Wrights football-rap crossover, shellsuits and any disaster of the nineties.

Ok, so it’s established that ‘No Fronts’ was a one-off commercial hit for the Dog Eat Dog crew, but surely Roadrunner had a reason for putting out a few more records and therefore pouring a little fountain of money at them. Well, listening to the 13 tracks sandwiched between No Fronts, on this supposed best of… album I started to think that possibly this band are the biggest waste of money since the Millennium Dome(don't get me started!!). I suspect this band did have a couple of fans who now prefer Beck, Limp Bollox, Sublime (RIP), The Bloodhound Boyband or Craig Fad-ed.

If you don’t believe how bad this album could be and still see a glimmer of hope for Dog Eat Dog - because they’re signed to the same label as Slipknot, Soulfly and lots of other nu-metal superstars - then these are examples why this album is complete and utter shite:

Track four ‘Isms’, past single, opens like a track from the Offsprings 'smash', y'know: out of tune singing with guitars and drums coming in at the same time like little waves of adrenaline. Then suddenly, urrrrrgggh, trumpets! How bad to trumpets sound with three cord punk? Listen to this and you will hear exactly how bad. Trumpets sound alright with Ska, but not with this dodgy Run-DMC/Aerosmith tune. Ok, so the band have some crazy ideals “Racism: we don’t want it here. Fascism: we don’t want it here…you better keep that ism out of my ear. You’re brainwashed yeah!” But it sounds like sociology from a packet of Jelly Jots.

Then track five ‘Rocky’ is all about, you guessed it, the Styllone flick ROCKY! Well, at least in the chorus it is about Rocky asking him if he “would just go away. Don’t come back another day, okay?”. But the verses’ have no relevance and there are yet more trumpets.

Track eight ‘One day’, sounds almost listenable, well, for a boy band like Westlife who'd possibly pretend to play guitars and have a DJ with a everso cool backward baseball cap, doing one handed scratching. “I should be school but I’m begging for change. I’m hoping for change. Preying for change. Feeling my pain” has almost have a profound poetic edge to them but this songs all about street crimes and the MC does sayeth “listen up world, I’ve got a lot to say” - the illusion of depth vanishes. I guess it’s up there with “Everything happens for a reason” on the skateboarder’s graffiti guide to genius.

Arrrggghhh…it gets worse, a track called ‘More Beer’ with four blokes shouting backing vocals “All I want is more beer”. Plus the lead singer going so out of tune I think I cracked a rib laughing. And that’s not to mention more simple scratching and a Guns and Roses style guitar solo with slowed down drumming which was probably a well planned bridge, to lead into more three-cord punk rock. Wow. If only every band could make such an evolutionary step from hearing Walk this way... well, I can't hear any other influence.

I don’t think I need to go on. I guess this album is a must for any band who are considering making a comical record, because this album is without doubt the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard. Laugh *at* this record if you can endure the torture of it!