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Review: State Champs – Unplugged

State Champs - Unplugged
Brett Bodner

The sign of a great band is one that sounds fantastic once all the bells and whistles are stripped away. State Champs has shown off this quality before with The Acoustic Things and they’ve done it again with their new EP, Unplugged. With each of their first three albums, State Champs have emerged as one of the best pop punk bands around today, if not the best. Unplugged proves that they’re not only an excellent pop punk band, but they’re just an excellent band, period. 

The EP consists of four new songs and two reimagined Living Proof tracks. Unplugged kicks off with the beautiful “A Thousand Hearts,” which is this EP’s “If I’m Lucky.” The opener is a sweet love song where singer Derek DiScanio sings about finally finding the person he wants to give his heart to. It’s basically the song version of the saying “you have to crack a few eggs before you make an omelet.” The band delivers on each note throughout the track with a steady drum beat, piano and acoustic guitars. However, it’s Saxl Rose that steals the show with a killer saxophone solo at the 3:04 mark. The instrument fits in well throughout the song and it helps kick the EP off on a high note. (P.S. if you haven’t heard of Saxl Rose before, do yourself a favor and head over to YouTube and check out his pop punk covers. I recommend his covers of A Day To Remember’s “If It Means A Lot to You” and Blink-182’s “Always.”)

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Barely Civil – “The Worst Part of December” (Video Premiere)

Barely Civil
Adam Grundy

Today I’m happy to share with you the exclusive video premiere of “The Worst Part of December,” the great new single by Barely Civil. Frontman Connor Erickson had this to say about the direction of the record, “I feel like our music revolves around the process of analyzing who we are and where we come from. Possibly, even, where we belong.”

Barely Civil’s new album, I’ll Figure This Out, will be released on September 4th via Take This to Heart Records. Pre-orders are now up.

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The Killers Talk With USA Today

The Killers
Jason Tate

The Killers talked with USA Today, and guitarist Dave Keuning will be returning to the band.

”Mirage” marks the first Killers album without guitarist/co-founder Dave Keuning, who left the band in 2017 to pursue a solo career. But drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. insists there is no ill will, and says they’ll be reuniting with Keuning in the studio this month. 

”The tides might be changing a little bit for the better. The four horsemen ride again,” Vannucci says. “We’ll see what happens. As we get older, priorities change and people need to do life things that don’t include playing in a rock band. I totally get that. I think we’ll look back and say that was a much-needed respite for everybody.”  

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