As a helpless member of the Dateless Losers club, I often find myself critiquing members of the opposite sex who have the misfortune of coming into my life. The hope, of course, is that one day I will find "the one" who exceeds all of my ridiculous expectations, and the two of us will be forever entwined in passion strong enough to shake the heavens. On various occasions, I have met women who seem to embody everything I could possibly want, but despite all logical reasoning, I don't feel the vibe-- my heart doesn't jump because of this person; my body doesn't quiver; my soul doesn't thirst.

No Use for a Name's third full-length offering, Making Friends, gives me a similar impression. Try as I might, I cannot identify a single problem with this album; nonetheless, I am very hesitant to sing its praises. The problem, once again, involves differences between what is logical and what is intuitive. Logically speaking, this is a strong effort. The band, with the recent addition of ex-Face to Face bassist, Matt Riddle, is tighter than it has ever been. The album begins in blistering fashion with one of its highlights, "The Answer is Still No," and ends with a stirring rendition of what I'm guessing is an Irish folk song -- "Fields of Athenry" -- with few points of tedium in-between. Effective guest appearances are made by Dicky Barrett (The Mighty Mighty Bosstones) among others. Heck, they even continue the recent Fat Wreck Chords trend of paying homage to Kiss (see Good Riddance and Lagwagon) by punkifying the classic ballad, "Beth."

So what's wrong with the album? No Use for a Name have always had a bit of a derivative sound (it's hard to imagine their existence without the likes of Bad Religion and NOFX preceding them), and this album isn't likely to change that impression. Perhaps after hearing so many variations of the same sound, I have become somewhat desensitized to it-- not in the sense that I no longer think it rocks, or it no longer sounds good to me, but it no longer has that extraordinary quality, that life- altering effect. In short, it's missing the vibe.

-Kevin Ruggeri