Twelve years after their debut live album, I Heard They Suck Live, SoCal pop-punkers NOFX drag the old mobile recorder back down to a stinky club for followup effort They’ve Actually Gotten Worse Live. For those keeping count, that’s six albums’ worth of set-list favourites lovingly — but not necessarily perfectly — documented during a few nights in a Californian suds joint. Packing a number of expected ditties such as “Franco Un-American,” “Murder the Government,” “Stickin’ in my Eye” and “The Longest Line” into the 24-track opus, the band knows what works. Rounding that out with their typical teenaged tomfoolery (which is hardly befitting guys pushing 50), They’ve Actually Gotten Worse Live is, well, typical.

Despite strong production values, NOFX has never been the most impressive live band, spending more time fucking around and screwing up parts than reinterpreting their simplistic four-chord punk rock in earnest. To that extent, a live recording of a passable band isn’t exactly the best-laid plan in times of rampant digital downloading. People barely buy records anyway, because most new albums are less than extraordinary, and when it’s merely a hamfisted revisit to well-tread ground… you get the idea. While They’ve Actually Gotten Worse Live is amusing in characteristically snotty NOFX fashion, the brazen admission of lacklustre returns is as off-putting as front man Fat Mike’s garish golf shorts.