The Beat Buttons are a catchy melodic indie-punk trio hailing from Gainesville, Florida. A town which has produced some of my most favorite bands over time, but it has also produced many-a-dull gruff punk band thanks to the massive punk label No Idea.
When I first started listening I was delighted to say it is not the chuggy gruff punk that I had expected much like the countless amounts of Hot Water Music wannabe’s that parade across Gainesville so that’s a plus point in itself.
The first track called ‘Red (Gainesville is full of excuses) I think takes influence from a bagpipe piece which I can’t recall the name of at the moment. So I’m pretty sure there is only one chord that rings out through the entire song – nevertheless it’s an alright song but I wasn’t really taken until I got to the third track which paves the way for the rest of the CD. It’s called ‘Favorite Flavor’ and is abundant with twiddly guitars reminiscent of many mid 90’s indie rock bands – there is a lot of sparseness in the music because of this. Lots of one note guitar lines with nice emotive singing over the top. The CD plods along again much like this up until about half way where it seems like the songs get a lot fuzzier and noisier rather than the previous twiddly indie rock stylings that came before.
Up to track 6 ‘The Middle’ where we see the music starts to get a lot denser – it feels almost like they decided to turn the bass up in the mix a little at this point or something? Either way it sounds a lot chunkier despite the fact that the guitar is still twiddling away endlessly – but don’t be put off by that because surprisingly, this isn’t the kind of guitar wankery that sounds like someone trying to show off their guitar skills but more like catchy one note guitar lines that are just plain fun, this is almost like Jawbreakers ’24 Hour Revenge Therapy’ in a way but without the gruffness and a lot more emphasis on the fun aspect previously mentioned.
Essentially, this is melodic indie-punk that wouldn’t sound out of place playing alongside bands like P.S. Eliot, Cheeky or Little Lungs. So if those bands tickle your fancy then maybe you will like this, and despite all the songs having essentially the same formulae they are all distinctly different in their own way. If only they had removed that first track, which to be honest I would skip personally when listening to this CD. Check it out, it’s definitely worth a listen at the very least.
When I first started listening I was delighted to say it is not the chuggy gruff punk that I had expected much like the countless amounts of Hot Water Music wannabe’s that parade across Gainesville so that’s a plus point in itself.
The first track called ‘Red (Gainesville is full of excuses) I think takes influence from a bagpipe piece which I can’t recall the name of at the moment. So I’m pretty sure there is only one chord that rings out through the entire song – nevertheless it’s an alright song but I wasn’t really taken until I got to the third track which paves the way for the rest of the CD. It’s called ‘Favorite Flavor’ and is abundant with twiddly guitars reminiscent of many mid 90’s indie rock bands – there is a lot of sparseness in the music because of this. Lots of one note guitar lines with nice emotive singing over the top. The CD plods along again much like this up until about half way where it seems like the songs get a lot fuzzier and noisier rather than the previous twiddly indie rock stylings that came before.
Up to track 6 ‘The Middle’ where we see the music starts to get a lot denser – it feels almost like they decided to turn the bass up in the mix a little at this point or something? Either way it sounds a lot chunkier despite the fact that the guitar is still twiddling away endlessly – but don’t be put off by that because surprisingly, this isn’t the kind of guitar wankery that sounds like someone trying to show off their guitar skills but more like catchy one note guitar lines that are just plain fun, this is almost like Jawbreakers ’24 Hour Revenge Therapy’ in a way but without the gruffness and a lot more emphasis on the fun aspect previously mentioned.
Essentially, this is melodic indie-punk that wouldn’t sound out of place playing alongside bands like P.S. Eliot, Cheeky or Little Lungs. So if those bands tickle your fancy then maybe you will like this, and despite all the songs having essentially the same formulae they are all distinctly different in their own way. If only they had removed that first track, which to be honest I would skip personally when listening to this CD. Check it out, it’s definitely worth a listen at the very least.
