Missile Toes–Christmas album signals a Smash Mouth comeback

Review by C.J. Bunce

It was ten years ago next month that we reviewed rock band Smash Mouth’s last album here at borg, its first album in six years, titled Magic.  The album included a hardly noticeable, slightly revised band roster, but it was still helmed by lead vocalist Steve Harwell.  A lot has happened since then.  The band has shuffled its crew–between sixteen different musicians–so many times and ways that it has its own graphic on Wikipedia to keep track.  Harwell left the band, and later health issues brought him to an early death this September.  Two years ago he was replaced by current lead vocalist Zach Goode (of bands Ghoulspoon, Divided By Zero, and The Secret Seven).  In 2022 Smash Mouth released a cover of a 1987 British hit, Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” a new song “4th of July,” and then this summer “Underground Sun.”  Looking back on only two years since Goode joined the band, you’ll find each of these releases was important, because they gave the band time to return to its roots as a party band, and Goode the time to blend his voice with the sound of the band’s previous hits, belting out on your classics like “All Star,” “Then the Morning Comes,” “Walkin’ on the Sun,” and their cover of The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.”

The band’s surprise new Christmas album Missile Toes marks the return of the band not quite to its former glory just yet (the band moved from major venues in the 1990s to playing all kinds of small local venues in recent years), but you can hear a band on the right track.  A comeback?  Definitely.  But it still has a ways to go.  You’re going to enjoy the new album, a solid follow-up to the band’s 2005 Christmas album, The Gift of Rock.  The new album is perfect to crank to eleven and it’s even better for background play during your 2023 holiday parties, full of Christmas classics sung in Smash Mouth’s in-your-face style, along with a big hit cover featuring The Bangles’ former singer and guitarist Susanna Hoffs.

Goode is holding his own.  Rounding out the rest of the band, Paul De Lisle (bass) and Michael Klooster (keyboards) were with the band since the nineties with drummer Randy Cooke and Sean Hurwitz on guitar since the 2010s.

Missile Toes features four new songs and six covers, beginning with the title track, a chugging, train-like tune about Santa coming down the chimney–nothing political with the missiles in the title, just a play on mistletoe.  It’s nothing complicated, and it fits in with classics “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” or “Up On the Rooftop.”  If the album has a theme, it’s “hit and run”–fast Christmas songs where the band gets its Christmas spirit in and then movies on to the next tune.  The exception is the second track, a “bad love” tune, “Single for Christmas,” a theme repeated again with a postive twist in the fifth track.  This song offers some good guitar riffs.  You’ll find Goode is best when he leans into the grind, the loud chants and fun of the songs, which makes the next track, a goofy tune called “Mary Chris” sound like it’s indistinguishable with the sound on the band’s first albums in the 1990s.

This Smash Mouth inserts into the album what feels like a punk anthem, yet the lyrics are actually a sweet love letter to moms everywhere.  It’s called “Xmas Time,” with the Xmas pronounced Christmas.  It has lyrics like “Mama, mama, Merry Christmas, I’m so glad I’m your boy.”  Somehow the song blends right in with the rest.  That’s it for the band’s four new songs.

The really big win on the album, and the song most deserving radio play, is a cover of The Waitresses’ song “Christmas Wrapping,” featuring Susanna Hoffs.  She does all the heavy lifting with the crazy rap song lyrics, but the band, including Goode on back-up vocals, doesn’t miss a beat.  This is a strong song.  The repeated sax/trumpets bit will stick with you.  It’s has much in common with Blondie’s “Rapture,” and the result is stronger than The Waitresses’ version.

Four of the five next songs are Christmas staples belted out by Goode–not quite as boisterous as Brian Setzer but with the same energy Harwell would have supplied in his best years: “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” an almost angry version with hints of Beastie Boys, and a mix of “Dreidel Song,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and other snips of songs factored in.  It’s followed by an upscale, classy version of “Sleigh Ride,” with Goode sounding more like Harry Connick, Jr. in a big stage, boppy production showstopper.  Next up is “White Christmas,” where the lyrics are the only familiar part of the song.  This is all Goode leaning into that Smash Mouth sound, and he sounds like he’s having fun.  The same goes for the final song, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

The penultimate song is Wham!’s Christmas staple you either love or hate, “Last Christmas.”  Smash Mouth’s take is more up-tempo, which is already an improvement on the original.  As a bonus Goode is doubled by featured singer Sophie Grey.  You won’t fall asleep or flip to another channel if this rollicking rendition plays on your songlist or radio.

Missile Toes isn’t as polished a production as its first Christmas album, The Gift of Rock, with all its big, layered instrumentation on songs like “Father Christmas,” the Setzer-swing “Don’t Believe in Christmas” and “Zat You Santa Claus?,” the Phil Spector classic “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” and the band’s version of “Snoopy’s Christmas,” which still gets radio play 20 years later.  But you won’t find a single clunker on Missile Toes.  When lots of bands put out the one Christmas album and phone it in, it’s great for this band to get two into music stores in its career.

Smash Mouth’s first album was released in 1997.  Titled Fush Yu Mang, it netted the band’s breakout hit, “Walkin’ on the Sun.”  It also featured the singles “The Fonz” and a cover of War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” as well as one of Smash Mouth’s coolest songs to date, the 1950s throwback, revved-up, epic mafia-themed “Padrino.”

This was quickly followed in 1999 by one of the best-ever-produced, follow-up hit albums, Astro Lounge, a pretty much perfect end-to-end album, including the funky “Diggin’ Your Scene,” the ache-filled ballad “Waste,” the band-defining mega-hit “All-Star” (featured in the superhero movie Mystery Men), the girl-fantasy salsa number “Satellite,” the uber-fun, ska-esque, summer tunes “Stoned” and “Road Man,” the bad boy anthem “Defeat You,” and the hit singles “Then the Morning Comes” and “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby.”

Smash Mouth continued cranking out fun pop albums every other year.  The 2001 album titled Smash Mouth featured the summer fun singles “Holiday in My Head,” the super-cool retro and timeless “Pacific Coast Party,” the mega-hit  cover of The Monkee’s “I’m a Believer,” featured in the movie Shrek, and the under-rated songs “Sister Psychic,” the smoke-filled, last call ballad “Out of Sight,” and funky “Disenchanted.”

The 2003 album Get the Picture? featured the inspiring single “Hang On,” the girl-fantasy “Always Gets Her Way,” and the hit radio reggae/ska song “You are My Number One” with Ranking Roger, a song that reached back to the band’s early sounds.

Three years later after several false starts Summer Girl was released, including one of Smash Mouth’s best singles, the almost Rocky-inspired sports anthem “So Insane,” as well as “Everyday Superhero” with its “All Star” throwback sound, the funky B-52s-feel rock single “Getaway Car,” and “Story of My Life,” one of Smash Mouth’s light-hearted “life is tough” songs, and the title song, the beach song “Summer Girl.”

Six years later was the album Magic.  Although the only single off the album was Magic, there are some notable tunes that rival the best of Smash Mouth’s past. “Perfect Planet” is a rousing song with some themes from the earlier hit “So Insane” that would have fit nicely on Astro Lounge with “Who’s There?” or Get the Picture?‘s “New Planet.”  The biggest wins on the album include “Live to Love Another Day,” which is not only a great future Bond film name, but has a funky classic rock beat and great lyrics, as well as “Magic” and “She’s Into Me,” both great, positive outlooks on love that will leave you thinking about Tal Bachman’s hit song “She’s So High” and maybe even Rob Thomas and Santana’s “Smooth.”  It wraps with what the band does so well, another cover, this time Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me).”

Fans of the latest, greatest Christmas albums from rock legends past and present, Smash Mouth fans, and anyone who likes a good revved up Christmas carol won’t want to pass up this new album, Missile Toes, available now here at Amazon and anywhere you get your music.  Hopefully Smash Mouth’s next album is just around the corner.