Wrong

Look, I’m not a conspiracy-minded guy, but a carefully coordinated effort by the international punk intelligentsia to keep me in the dark is the only explanation I see for why it took 37 years for this incredible album to find its way to me. NoMeansNo has been on my radar since the early ’90s, when they appeared on Alternative Tentacles’ Virus 100 compilation, and their committed a cappella cover of Dead Kennedys’ “Forward to Death” gave me more than enough incentive to investigate further. But for some reason, I just never did. Fast-forward to July of 2026, when Converge’s Jacob Bannon gushing over NoMeansNo’s 1989 magnum opus, Wrong, was compelling enough for me to drop the album in my Bandcamp wishlist. This morning, I finally gave it a spin. And then I spent the rest of the morning spinning it again and again.

This record’s punk-forward rawness and immediacy is offset by an inventiveness and musicianship more commonly associated with prog or jazz, all without ever feeling showy or self-indulgent. It’s also fun, articulate, impeccably produced, and just bursting with life. It effortlessly synthesizes so many musical things I love, and it does it better than almost any other record I can think of. I’m completely floored; I can’t believe this treasure has been hiding in plain sight all this time. For something that calls itself Wrong, it couldn’t be more right.

By all accounts, this is the fan-favorite NoMeansNo album, but if anything else in their sizable oeuvre is half this good, I’ll be a happy camper. I won’t wait another 37 years to find out.