Tribute albums are usually bland, uneven ego trips. Record labels like to put them together to pay homage to a particularly influential band or artist – and hopefully sell records on the back of that artist — but the resulting albums rarely tend to match whatever makes the covered artist interesting. There are rare exceptions of course, like “Mermaid Avenue,” “Take Me Home: A Tribute to John Denver” and the soundtrack to “Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man,” all of which pay their respect admirably. And surprisingly, the recently released (via free download) tribute to Bad Religion, “,” deserves a place on that list too.

Tributes to punk bands don’t generally come off well, perhaps because few punk bands truly warrant such a record, and secondly because even fewer bands have the songwriting chops to support an interesting album. But “Germs” succeeds because of both the artistic merit of its contributors and the strength of the original material. Bad Religion have been making great punk rock for 30 years and their songs combine blistering tempos, thoughtful politics and catchy melodies.

What works best: Tracks that strip away Bad Religion’s formula of double-time snare drum thwacks and in-your-face guitars, like William Elliot Whitmore’s solo acoustic version of “Don’t Pray on Me,” in which the Iowa blues singer wraps his raspy-voice around the 1993 song from “Recipe for Hate.” Christian rockers Switchfoot offer up a finger-picked and breathy version of “Sorrow,” which also appears on the Rock Band games, and Ted Leo’s acoustic version of the 1990 Bad Religion classic “Against the Grain.”

What doesn’t work: Bad Religion’s older material — as essential as it is — simply isn’t as versatile as their newer stuff and therefore doesn’t tend to be interpreted as well. The usually-great Weakerthans come up short on a percussion-heavy version of 1989’s “Sanity.” Guttermouth’s “Pity” is as unmemorable as the rest of that band’s catalog and Tegan and Sara, perhaps the unlikeliest of contributors to the album, don’t add anything worthy to “Suffer,” despite an interesting acoustic arrangement that keeps the original version’s tempo. Riverboat Gamblers, Cheap Girls and Polar Bear Club keep their interpretations similar to the originals, and though not particularly memorable, they aren’t bad either and would certainly be fun to hear amidst any of those band’s live sets.

Verdict: It’s a free album celebrating 30 years of Bad Religion and featuring some of indie rock’s biggest names – so what have you got to lose except a little space on your hard drive? To boot, it will only be available for a month, so snatch it up now, from here, before it disappears.

William Elliot Whitmore – “Don’t Pray on Me”
Switchfoot – “Sorrow”

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