| Never Trouble Trouble Until Trouble Troubles You | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | SNFU |
| Cover: | Never Trouble Trouble Until Trouble Troubles You.jpg |
| Released: | November 2013 |
| Recorded: | January–March 2013 |
| Genre: | Melodic hardcore |
| Length: | 40:31 |
| Label: | Cruzar Media |
| Producer: | SNFU & Steve Loree |
| Prev Title: | In the Meantime and In Between Time |
| Prev Year: | 2004 |
| Next Title: | ...And Yet, Another Pair of Lost Suspenders |
| Next Year: | 2019 |
Never Trouble Trouble Until Trouble Troubles You is the eighth and final studio album by Vancouver hardcore punk band SNFU. It was released in 2013 by Cruzar Media.
The record was released nine years after the band's previous album, In the Meantime and In Between Time. It was their only output recorded without co-founding guitarist Marc Belke,[1] the sole release from the SNFU lineup led by singer Ken Chinn and guitarist Ken Fleming spanning 2007 to 2013, and the final studio album to feature Chinn before his death on July 16, 2020. It received mixed but generally positive reviews.
In 2007, vocalist Ken Chinn reformed SNFU after a two-year disbandment, with former bassist Ken Fleming now playing guitar. This was the first SNFU lineup not to include founding guitarist and principal songwriter Marc Belke. The reformed group spent four initial years performing only old material from the band's previous eras.
SNFU's rhythm section had solidified with bassist Denis Nowoselski and drummer Jon Card by 2010, when second guitarist Sean Colig was also added. But this lineup was dealt several blows the following year. Chinn contracted a severe case of pneumonia, forcing the band to cancel tour dates.[2] Rehearsing further became complicated when Fleming emigrated to Japan, and Nowoselski relocated to the Northwest Territories.
Despite these setbacks, the group remained active. Late in 2011, Fleming, Colig, and Card recorded a five-song demo in Adam Payne's recording studio in Vancouver. This was their first new material since reforming in 2007 and first studio recording since the In the Meantime and In Between Time album of 2004.
The band led the When Pigs Fly tour in 2012 in support of Chris Walter's SNFU biography What No One Else Wanted to Say. Nowoselski departed and was replaced by Kerry Cyr for the tour's final two shows, and the band continued to circulate the unfinished demo among record executives. They received interest from Dan Lefrancois and his Cruzar Media imprint, who helped them complete the demo by arranging to have Chinn's vocal tracks added in July.[3] Liking the demo and Fleming's additional new material, Cruzar agreed to release a new full-length album, the band's eighth. Steve Loree, a former member of the bands Deadbeat Backbone, Jr. Gone Wild, and Greyhound Tragedy, was enlisted to record and produce the album via his mobile studio Crabapple Downs.[4]
Organizing the recording sessions proved to be logistically difficult due to Fleming's relocation and Chinn's chronic health problems.[5] With minimal time to rehearse and record, the band spent January 2013 rehearsing extensively and recording with Loree under an old bakery in East Vancouver.[6] They played a 30th anniversary show in Vancouver on February 1 before Fleming returned to Japan.[7] Chinn's vocals were recorded in the basement of the DV8 venue in Edmonton the following month. Colig recorded all the back up and harmony vocals at Crabapple Downs Studio in Nanton, Alberta. Along with Colig, Dylan Wolfspyder was an additional guest vocalist on the track "Crude Crude City."
The release of Never Trouble Trouble Until Trouble Troubles You was originally scheduled for May 2013, but it was delayed by several months. The band shot a music video for "Voodoo Doll Collector" with guitarist Tobias Chobotuck standing in for Fleming, who was unable to make the trip from Japan.
With Fleming, they toured Canada in July. Guest drummer Junior Kittlitz replaced the ailing Card when the band embarked on their first tour of Japan in September, and again toured Canada in October.[8] [9] The final performance from this era of the band came on October 31. This lineup featured Kittlitz, but not Fleming, who had returned to Japan.[10]
Following numerous setbacks that delayed its release, the album was ultimately released in November. When the band finally toured behind the finished record in 2014, only Chinn remained from the lineup that had appeared on the recording. The lineups of SNFU that toured in support of the album and in the years that followed included Chinn, returning bassist Dave Bacon, guitarists Kurt Robertson and Randy Steffes, and several drummers. Due to Chinn's health, the band became inactive in 2018 and disbanded in July 2020 following Chinn's death.[11]
Despite inciting some controversy for the exclusion of founding member Belke, the album was generally received well by audiences and critics. Many praised the album for its authenticity, with SNFU biographer Chris Walter characterizing the record as "not some pale SNFU imitation but the real deal in almost every respect." Walter described the reviews of the album as "uniformly good."[12] Punknews.org reviewer teacherman wrote that while "SNFU’s musicianship is strong, tight, and heavy on the riffs" and "[t]he guitar solos are harmonious," the "real treat [...] is Chi Pig’s longevity and the fact that he carries on with a desire to bear the punk rock torch into his 50s, in spite of numerous reported obstacles in his own life."
Nonetheless, some critics offered tepid reviews. Bryan Birtles of Edmonton's Vue Weekly gave the album two out of five stars and assessed it as merely "OK". Birtles described the album as "disconnected", and worried that Chinn's abilities had deteriorated.