Labels: Act Your Age
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Pop punk albums aren’t supposed to be 50 minutes long. Pop punk albums aren’t to have huge explanations of what all the songs about. Pop punk albums are supposed to be 25 minutes long. Pop punk albums are supposed to have 12 songs about girls. Or 12 songs that are “funny” (i.e. only amusing to members of the band, and their immediate circle of friends). Sore Loser therefore straight away stand out from the crowd. And their music ain’t a bunch of arse either.
The music is generally pretty fast paced and catchy, and is the more agressive sort of melodic punk rather than that cack-handed dull stuff that a lot of US bands seem to peddle. This lot even have some riffs like the Get Up Kids and sometimes they go in for a bit of twiddly “emo” guitar. And they dabble in a hardcore song, which they do pretty well. I’m not so fussed with slower songs like “Automaton” which just doesn’t ever drag itself up from the floor, but hey look, I’ve just noticed they thank Navel from Japan, so they must be cool. This is a similar sort of pop punk actually, just a bit slower.
And all the music is backed up with some well thought out words.
Sure, a lot of things they are saying are pretty obvious to anyone who has their head screwed on right, but it’s nice to hear these things said by a pop punk band. Like, it’d be cool to see Guttermouth try and have a chat with Sore Loser. Ha.
So don’t let anyone tell you that pop punk has nothing to say – Sore Loser are your example, use them.