In most Christian circles, our emotions are seen as our enemies, subverting our ability to listen to the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit. Yet, there they are every day, reminding us of our humanity. So how cool it is that the first words Mike Herrera sings on the new MxPx disc are "Emotion is my middle name." Cooler still is the fact that much of Life In General is simply about, well, life. A part of that does concern the faith of the band, but often not in the traditional or expected ways. The bulk of the tunes focus on Mike, Tom and Yuri just being guys, and how they deal with everyday stuff like girls, school, family, chicks, homework and girls (sensing a theme here?). Sure, they're the premiere group playing Christian punk, so we'll give them a little slack in terms of perhaps zeroing too tightly on a particular range of subject matter. Besides, many songwriters seem to feel that their faith exists in a vacuum; that, for some reason, the mundane experiences that shape the bulk of our lives aren't as much fun to write about as the more spectacular events. Mike has no such problem. "Do Your Feet Hurt," for instance, reverses the formula of a fan being devoted to an artist. This track finds Herrera plaintively asking a girl for an after-school date, offering her "a ride on my Vespa," and to "climb up to your window and read you a poem." Later, in the pop gem "Move To Bremerton," Herrera laments the fact that the special girls he meets always live "somewhere else in the world." So he devises a plan to entice them to his Washington home by changing "the street signs you drive down/so you end up in my town" and re-drawing the maps "so they all lead to Bremerton." In case the depth of his feelings has escaped the young lady, Mike closes with "If you owned a brain and use it too/You gotta know that I'd have a crush on you." The female fascination is carried to its logical (or perhaps, illogical) extreme in "Chick Magnet," the guy who, Herrera cautions, is "gonna settle down/if he meets that special girl soon." Herrera does encourage listeners to think independently ("Your Problem, My Emergency," "Sometimes You Have To Ask Yourself") and Mike allows himself moments of reflection and doubt as well ("The Wonder Years," "My Mom Still Cleans My Room"). As far as the music goes, Mike, Yuri & Tom are the bomb. They rock, they smoke, they make you hair stand on end (even if you use lots 'o gel). Life In General may not contain the requisite amount of biblical vocabulary for some listeners. But it's true to the tradition of punk by allowing the band to say exactly what's on its mind.