The debut LP by Team Goldie, called Trailblazer, is a solid mix of pop-punk, emo, and overall nostalgia towards the scene of music most of us grew up on. Team Goldie comes from the mind of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Matt DiStefano, and the new album was produced by DiStefano and John Browne. What comes through the speakers is a blast of energetic pop-punk songs filled with passion and knowledge of this genre. On the name-dropping single of “One & Only,” DiStefano rhythmically sings, “She was standing there in mom jeans and a plain white tee / With confidence, yelled “what’s good, Charlotte?” / Sand in my hand and we got to talking / She said “What’s your sign, boy?” I’m all Aries no Taurus / Just an absolute punk jumping straight to the chorus like…” before jumping into a crowd-pleasing chorus. While Team Goldie may just be happy to be a part of this scene of music, Trailblazer plays out like a record that you’ll want to revisit during the care free days of summer.
After a brief spoken word introductory track, Team Goldie sets things off on the right foot with “I’m Back,” that features a fast-paced tempo and a bold statement in the chorus of, “Well, I’m back and I ain’t never left / Or we ain’t never met.” Other early songs like “Roses” change up the tempo to a more somber speed and DiStefano does some self-reflecting as he sings, “You gotta stop and smell the roses / You gotta take it all in.” It’s a nice admission from the vocalist and helps bring more context to the sound that Team Goldie was going for here.
”Michael J” features a cool opening guitar riff before DiStefano raps with confidence over a steady beat, while “Live For The Weekend” offers some well-placed synths to help fill out the track. The latter song is a cool, new wave-esque mid-tempo jam that would be right up the alley for fans of Smallpools and Bleachers.
The back half of Trailblazer kicks off with “Big Riff” that leans heavier into the rap genre, while DiStefano complements the rapped verses with a nice instrumental breakdown in between. “Stockton 2 Malone” brings things back to synth-laden pop-punk similar to Motion City Soundtrack, while “28” is a straight-forward speedy pop-punk track reminiscent of Blink-182 and Fenix TX. A rare acoustic ballad of “Scorpion Deathlock (Summer)” helps with rounding out the overall vibes brought forth on Team Goldie’s debut, and allows for a campfire sing-a-long moment in the set. The title track reminded me a lot of the summery pop-punk that Seaway crafted on their last album, Big Vibe, while “Live For the Weekend (Reprise)” closes out the LP with grace and poise, and a moment of reflection in the last few instrumental bars before closing the book on this chapter of Team Goldie.
Trailblazer works best when DiStefano leans heavily into his pop-punk influences and adds nice nuances to the songs to keep them from being a carbon copy of what’s come before. Team Goldie should springboard from this successful opening statement and navigate further into an exploration of what makes them different from other bands in the genre. From there, we can certainly get a better understanding of what this band is and wants to be.