Underrated, overlooked and long forgotten, if Huntington Beach, California’s Big Drill Car could be considered guilty of any one thing it would be bad timing. Originally formed in 1987, the punk rock outfit released a modest debut in their 1988 EP Small Block before going on to create what should be considered a legendary run of near-perfect full length records, beginning with 1989’s Album Type Thing (or Cassette/CD Type Thing, depending on your format of choice).

Album Type Thing characterized Big Drill Car’s sound as something more substantive than just another in a long line of Descendents rip offs; namely what set them apart was the bombastic guitar stylings of Mark Arnold (look, ma, solos!) and Frank Daly’s incredibly dynamic vocal range. Bassist Bob Thomson and drummer Danny Marcroft filled out the rest of the lineup, and though they carried the rhythm section in what some might consider little more than a capable manner, they certainly made up for their shortcomings through their abundant charisma and sense of showmanship. Big Drill Car followed up Album Type Thing with the equally impressive and even more accessible fan favorite, Batch. Batch saw the band fine-tuning their melodic hardcore sound and was simultaneously home to some of their best songs, including the leadoff track “Take Away,” “If It’s Poison” and an inspired cover of Devo’s classic anthem, “Freedom Of Choice.” Following the album’s release, Big Drill Car became a local phenomenon, obtaining a heady regional reputation for their furious and exciting live performances.

Then the bottom dropped out. Bob Thomson left the band to pursue a career with another group with hopes of making the jump to a major label and Danny Marcroft quit soon after, leaving Big Drill Car to deal with a rotating lineup of drummers for the rest of their existence. The group limped along for a few more years, releasing a live album and the swan song No Worse For The Wear in 1994 before finally throwing in the towel. Most fans attest that, had the group survived for even another year, they would have achieved national fame on the level of contemporaries such as Green Day, Rancid, NOFX or The Offspring, all of whom became immensely famous during the Southern California punk explosion of the mid-‘90s. It was official; Big Drill Car would forever be designated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Should-Have-Beens and forgotten by all except those few who took the time to seek out their music.

Fast-forward about fifteen years, the world has spun five thousand times or more and the temporarily reunited classic Big Drill Car lineup is set to release unto the world their final musical statement: a compilation containing five new songs and odds-n-sods titled A Never Ending Endeavor. About those new songs, the sense of nail-in-the-coffin finality on display here is painfully sad in a way I hope is only partially intended. Sad because some of these songs, such as “Hospital Song” and “Latch Key,” really sound like a definitive, melancholic ending to a great band’s career, a band that never got a fair shake. The other three songs are depressing because they’re as great as any of the songs the Big Drill Car wrote in their initial inception, carrying on the torch like it was never even dropped in the first place. What makes it worse is Frank Daly’s voice has gotten even better with age; personally it’s enough to make me furious.

And that’s it, nothing’s left, show’s over. Of course there are fifteen more songs on the album, and they’re almost all unanimously great, but besides a couple of demos this stuff has all been previously released. We get No Worse For The Wear’s title cut (which, curiously, wasn’t on the album) and charming throwaway material like “Trash The House,” which is all well and good, but by no means a revelation. One aspect of Big Drill Car, which never quite translated to their albums, was their renowned choices of cover songs. Their run-through of Hüsker Dü’s “Celebrated Summer” is not only faithful and well performed, but amazingly carries over the same heart-crushing feeling of the original. Their inspired take on Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” is equally awe-inspiring; where any other punk rock band would poke fun at Cheap Trick’s inherent uncoolness, Big Drill Car do a more than serviceable job in paying tribute to their idols. If any proof is needed to reveal what a talent Frank Daly is as a singer, it can be found in this cover, it’s so good nobody could be blamed for mistaking it for the Cheap Trick original.

I could go on about Big Drill Car forever. Big Drill Car is that all too familiar story of the amazing underdog band that somehow wound up as a rock and roll footnote, playing second fiddle in history to far inferior acts. With this, though, their final document, I can take solace in the idea that they are going out on their own terms, wrapping up a career that for well over a decade has felt unfinished. Big Drill Car will never be as well recognized as their peers, but now I’m okay with that. A Never Ending Endeavor shouldn’t be confused as a starting point for the newcomer, that would be either Album Type Thing or Batch, but it’s the best farewell a dedicated fan could ever ask for, gathering up every single Big Drill Car song that was designated to b-sides, splits and compilation appearances and throwing in five new songs to keep us all wondering, “What if?”

Writer’s note: At the moment of this writing, the entire Big Drill Car catalog is out of print in all formats. Please, for the love of god, all of you readers start spamming SST/Cruz Records’ e-mail inbox to get these albums back into stores. I’m begging you!

All photos by Tom Daly