Review: Angels and Airwaves – We Don’t Need to Whisper

AbsolutePunk May 18, 2006

Blink 182 has become somewhat of a touchy subject in the punk community. They undoubtedly became one of the largest bands ever spawned from the ever-expansive genre as they released an unprecedented number of hit singles and successful albums during many years of music production. Where they fall on the scale of respect is quite another issue, and a more debatable one at that. Whereas thousands honor them as pop-punk pioneers, countless others blaspheme them as trite, overly immature, and unbearable. The group’s reputation transcends all demographics. The former opinion is expressed by aging fathers while the latter takes place even among the visitors of a site originally intended in large part to be a fan site for the aforementioned band.

AbsolutePunk May 1, 2006

Welcome to Wonderland. A world meticulously crafted by the minds of Forgive Durden, lies, deceit, greed, and lust lay within. The picture of Wonderland is painted with vivid lyrical imagery provided by Forgive Durden in their debut full-length. In one of the most diverse records to come out in recent memory, Forgive Durden brings their own musical style to several different musical genres, including takes on country, tango, and pop. But intertwined into all these styles is a distinctive sound that the band has made for themselves. Showing influences from Gatsby’s American Dream, Wonderland is full of accented off-beats and chromatic progressions, adding another band from Seattle who follows in Gatsby’s tech-rock footsteps. But the comparisons should end there. While listeners may hear similarities in certain chords or guitar stylings, virtually every song on Wonderland contains a chorus and Forgive Durden takes their musical exploration far beyond the expected scope.

AbsolutePunk Mar 23, 2006

Let’s start this with a disclaimer. The readers at AP.net have known that I haven’t been one to shy away from my opinion in the past. In fact, I’ve taken a fair amount of criticism for being too harsh on bands in the past (and too nice, it’ll never end). Those of you who are looking for me to rip FFTL to shreds can stop reading at this point, because it’s not going to happen. I don’t care what you think of this review and I don’t care what you think of me. All I know is that From First to Last has shocked me by creating a solid album that I expected to be awful. From the band’s previous work full of oversaturated clichés and ear-splitting vocals, one would never think the band could progress to this sort of level. If you haven’t given Heroine a fair listen, then you can’t judge this band. Yes, their image is absurd. Yes, many of their fans are ridiculous teenage girls with eyeliner and glam/goth outfits. But putting aside all of these factors, one must strip down FFTL and critique the actual music – and it’s good. This is a group of talented musicians who seem to have truly found their sound, with the help of acclaimed producer Ross Robinson, well known for his work with late 90’s nu-metal acts such as Korn and Slipknot. Robinson’s touch gleams off of Heroine from start to finish. Gritty as hell, full of obscenities and soaring sing-along choruses, FFTL has successfully transformed their sound.

AbsolutePunk Mar 15, 2006

When I sat down to review this record, I thought I’d browse the web to see what other people have said about Canyoneer. It only took a few minutes for me to realize that people know absolutely nothing about this band, and some of the reviews I read were so under-researched and inadequate that it actually made me upset. One website even went so far as to call No Trigger a “more scene Rise Against.” It is with these reviews in mind that I felt justice must be done to such an incredible band and release. And trust me, there’s nothing overtly “scene” about No Trigger – they’re more like a balls to the wall fusion of punk, melody, and hardcore. No Trigger shouldn’t be viewed as an aspiring band in comparison to Rise Against when they’ve already created a record that rivals anything Rise Against has ever created.

AbsolutePunk Mar 2, 2006

Surprising everyone by signing to major label RCA, Anti-Flag, one of the ultimate anti-establishment proponents, was doing one of two things – committing career suicide and losing all their hardcore DIY fans, or getting a chance to create one of the best albums of their career and send their message to the entire world. It certainly appears the latter is about to happen. Anti-Flag created a great record with top-notch production, intelligent songs, and an unabashed political message. Full of gang vocals, simplistic and memorable choruses, For Blood and Empire is an impressive major-label debut which will expose the band and their message to more than ever before. As always, the band’s intention seems to be raising awareness about the political environment while calling out our nation’s wrong doings and ignorance.

AbsolutePunk Feb 14, 2006

Produced by the masterful Nick Launay (Silverchair, INXS, Gang of Four), State of Emergency is quite the fourth album from The Living End. After the success of their Mark Trombino-produced third album, Modern Artillery (2003), the band took the overwhelming sheen from that CD, pared it down to simply a dull roar, and unleashed the aggression that seemed to be missing on their last album on State of Emergency. As a finished product, we the listeners get a CD packed with gritty post-punk and no bullshit to be found.

AbsolutePunk Jan 21, 2006

There are two overly weak aspects of Hawthorne Heights’ If Only You Were Lonely, and they are the same two elements that plagued their high selling The Silence in Black and White. Lyrically, Hawthorne Heights needs a lot of work to pass up the post-hardcore clichés of their predecessors in their own songwriting, and they need to do something more profound with their triad of guitars. When you have three people playing the same instrument and a bassist to add to the mix, we need something more complex than a flourish or a little reverb here and there to accent the lead guitar. Any metal or hardcore band worth their salt can play something similar with one guitarist and a bassist; the band has a huge opportunity to make grippingly corrosive music to curl your toes, the likes of which modern music has not seen. Instead, The Fully Down (who also have three guitarists) put Hawthorne Heights to shame in that department.

AbsolutePunk Jan 19, 2006

This is an open letter to Yellowcard, a band whose album Ocean Avenue I consider one of my favorite “summer albums,” and who hail from Jacksonville, in my adopted home state of Florida. I will welcome any attempt by the band to contact me regarding this review/open letter, and I am looking forward to reading fans’ thoughts.

Dear Yellowcard,

So you’ve finally gotten over the MTV-spurred major-label buzz from Ocean Avenue and the unceremonious banishment of guitarist and founding member Ben Harper (who you have replaced by former Staring Back guitarist Ryan Mendez) in time to build on that promising hype you generated back in 2003. The hype is there, with your lead single hitting the airwaves only about half a million times a day. With electrically charged guitar riffs, the title track is fun to listen to the first few times. But Ryan, your voice needs a little bit more “oomph.” I believe that as a band, you have managed to earn early “worst of ’06” honors for your abysmally awful “Down On My Head,” which stinks up the third spot on the CD. Did you just take cheesy emo lyrics, put them on repeat, and toss in a little bit of one-dimensional harmonizing for good measure to make sure the song is dead as a doornail? I’m of course going to say this and you’ll pick it as the next single, catapulting this steaming pile of dung into trendy oblivion. After your listeners work their way through that drag of a song (or just press “skip forward”), I have to give you props for the first solid track on Lights and Sounds. “Sure Thing Falling” is hard charging and overwhelmingly hooky, which plays to its advantage. I enjoy the brief interlude from violinist extraordinaire Sean Mackin late in the song as well, which adds some depth to this catchy piece of music. Characterized by a throaty bass line and simple yet well-written guitar riffs, “Sure Thing Falling” will hits your listeners hardest with the infectious lyrics, which are probably the best on the album. One for two isn’t bad.

AbsolutePunk Jan 6, 2006

Having garnered much praise and acclaim for their Moog-laced, high-octane, pop-tinged, full length debut I Am the Movie, expectations for Motion City Soundtrack’s follow-up, Commit This to Memory, were astronomically high, especially with Mark Hoppus of Blink 182 fame on board as producer. So, with all the build-up and the big name attached to the project, did Motion City Soundtrack deliver? Absolutely, and then some.

AbsolutePunk Dec 13, 2005

It’s been three very long years for Finch fans across the world. After the immense success of the band’s debut full-length What it is to Burn, fans grew tired of watching Finch play tour after tour, performing the same songs that had since grown old. Although Finch had played a large part in triggering the so-called “screamo” explosion, their sound had been replicated by hundreds of other bands who tried to cash in on the screamo fad. Of course, Finch was one the first bands to become a commercial success while performing that style of music. That was three long years ago, and the Finch faithful have been anxiously awaiting another album with bated breath. New demos began to surface, and reactions were widely varied. The consensus seemed to be that everybody absolutely hated Finch’s new style, or loved it. One thing was for sure – Finch’s new material was not going to be What it is to Burn part 2. That brings us to today, just days before Finch’s long awaited follow-up album, Say Hello to Sunshine.

AbsolutePunk Nov 29, 2005

Let’s just get it out of the way: Panic! At the Disco sounds like Fall Out Boy. Extraordinarily so. And it certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed: “Is this Patrick Stump’s side project?” and “I honestly thought this was Fall Out Boy playing a joke on people until they started playing shows” are common replies in news posts here regarding the band. You get the idea. Let’s just accept the fact that they’re a bit derivative (hell, they christened themselves after a line in the Name Taken song “Panic”), and go from there.

There has been a shit-load of buzz regarding Panic!: their idea of posting clips of songs from the album on Purevolume on Fridays and full versions on Tuesdays has almost necessitated a good many news posts on AP and on other webzines, which in turn has really put their name out there and gotten people talking about them. Here’s the thing though—people wouldn’t care talk about them unless they were really good, or really bad. And they’re not really bad.

AbsolutePunk Nov 21, 2005

Within the first few seconds, the impression is given that this is going to be a fun album. However, a crucial question lingers – will the fun last? The answer is an emphatic NO. The opening track, “All That We Needed”, is a really basic pop-rock song. Clean, simplistic rhythms work the song forward with high, jumpy bass lines. The snare jumps out of your speakers with a pop and my head was nodding without giving it any thought. It’s nothing new – but it’s done really well, as the repetitive chorus will remain in your mind for hours. This is a good thing – for one song. Not 13 songs. The album progresses into a darker song, “Revenge”. This is when the lyrics started to annoy me – “I’ve got the microphone so don’t go too far, I’m gonna tell the whole world how you really are”. The bubbly undertone provided by the album opener has managed to disappear in this song, as the verse is overly basic, the same pulsing beat pops in after each vocal line is spoken throughout the song. No variation means the song isn’t interesting.

AbsolutePunk Nov 21, 2005

It’s ironic that such a great summer album leaked online a month after the summer of 2004 was over. Now, in April 2005, Acceptance’s debut full-length Phantoms is about to become the mainstream summer hit of 2005. There’s a lot of pressure on this album to sell. A major label debut for a band with no proven mainstream success? A ballad (“Different”) being marketed as the first single? An album leak 6 months before the street release? A lot of questions have been raised regarding this band, but Acceptance has created an album to silence the doubters. Acceptance’s brand of catchy, emotional pop-rock stands out from the pack with killer hooks and stunning vocals. This band is about to take over the airwaves.

AbsolutePunk Nov 21, 2005

Does this band even have fans anymore? A Static Lullaby has returned with their major label debut but sadly nobody seems to care. The disinterest shown by music fans is not unmerited. Faso Latido is an uninspired sophomore album, full of predictable transitions, lackluster energy, and over the top production. The one thing that made A Static Lullaby remotely enjoyable in the first place was the fact that they had a moderate amount of energy. When this energy was manifested, the band truly put forth a good sound. Sadly, this album contains none of it. A Static Lullaby has two vocalists – the singer also drums, and then there’s the screamer who runs around stage awkwardly when he has nothing to do (see Atreyu, Underoath). While those bands have released follow-up albums that utilize all their vocalists, ASL’s sophomore effort does the opposite. A majority of the vocals are now singing only, in fact there are some songs where there is virtually no screaming at all. I’m not condoning or suggesting excessive amounts of screaming by any means, but the entire album lacks life. “Stand Up” is a catchy number that lasts for about 45 seconds before a sharp realization came to me – A Static Lullaby has turned into every other radio screaming band out there. Short verses, predictable choruses that get repeated over and over again for some instant sugar coated bullshit to make listeners happy. Put “Stand Up” on the new Trapt album and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The screaming, when used, is as obnoxious as ever. It comes in awkward places and is too intense for the often laid back musicianship. Additionally, the slow chanting/talking into screaming transition can only be used so many times.

AbsolutePunk Nov 21, 2005

Within 20 seconds of popping in this CD, I had to eject it and make sure I wasn’t listening to new Fall Out Boy demos. The vocal stylings, chord progressions, and mixing all sound very familiar – there’s even gang vocal shouts in the background. Yet despite these similarities, Hit the Lights is very capable of making some noise of their own. Despite this, the CD is permeated with parts that sound exactly like other bands. This EP is 5 songs of infectiously catchy pop-punk that is decently produced and is full of talent, but you have to wonder how much of the instrumentation was indirectly taken from other bands. Still, the verses are full of thick, driving melodies that induce foot-tapping. The second track, “At 6:00, We Go Live,” really fascinated me, basically because it was composed entirely of different sections of pop-punk songs I’d heard before. The drum fills, the stop and go breakdowns, the strumming patterns…it’s all very familiar. Yet I can’t say that the result was anything I didn’t enjoy. Hit the Lights don’t pretend to be anything they’re not – they play catchy, formulaic pop-punk, and they do it well.

Review: Angels and Airwaves – We Don’t Need to Whisper

Review: Forgive Durden – Wonderland

Review: From First to Last – Heroine

Review: No Trigger – Canyoneer

Review: Anti-Flag – For Blood and Empire

Review: The Living End – State of Emergency

Review: Hawthorne Heights – If Only You Were Lonely

Review: Yellowcard – Lights and Sounds

Review: Motion City Soundtrack – Commit This to Memory

Review: Finch – Say Hello to Sunshine

Review: Panic! at the Disco – A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out

Review: Plain White T’s – All That We Needed

Review: Acceptance – Phantoms

Review: A Static Lullaby – Faso Latido

Review: Hit the Lights – Until We Get Caught