Musik

How often does the leader of one of your favorite bands ask you to do a split album? Where his band covers your songs? Singer-songwriter Frank Turner found himself in that situation last year, when Fat Mike of Nofx asked if he wanted to do a split covers album. West Coast vs. Wessex shows Nofx filtering five of Frank Turner’s songs through their singular sensibility, with Turner doing the same on five Nofx songs. But these aren’t simply double-time versions of Turner’s folk-punk tunes or slow, acoustic reworkings of Nofx’s iconic SoCal punk anthems. Both Nofx and Frank Turner took time to play with the possibilities each other’s music presented. They also put a lot of thought into the songs they chose to cover.