Top Contenders: The Best of Strung Out is a two-disc compilation that collects from the Simi Valley punks’ 15 years of albums, going all the way back to 1994’s
Another Day in Paradise and spanning up to 2009’s
Agents of the Underground. A couple songs are taken from each of
Strung Out's seven albums, as well as their
Element of Sonic Defiance EP. Also, there are three newly recorded tracks (“City Lights,” “Saturday Night," and “Here We Are”) that don't feel out of place among the band's biggest hits. Of the several
Strung Out comps, this is the best by far. The Skinny Years: Before We Got Fat pooled from the early years, before their golden years at Fat Wreck Chords, and
Prototypes and Painkillers focused on outtakes and demos.
Top Contenders sums up the entire catalog rather well and stands as the definitive
Strung Out retrospective. ~ Jason Lymangrover