Labels: Virgin
Review by: Damien Mills
So another decent band heads for the majors and their big bucks after years of rocking the indies (albeit big ones).
Anyone familiar with The Explosion may also be a little let down by the sheer pop-ness of this after the snottiness of previous outings, but personally I am not averse to change as long as it’s done, y’know…well.
So the songs are more poppy than before, but they are perfectly written catchy punk rock songs, stuff like ‘Here I Am’ ‘Atrocity’and ‘Grace’ are as good as this stuff gets and never strays into A New Found Glory type territory, ever. This is much more ‘old punk’ influenced stuff – back when it still meant something, it was something I think you could always hear in The Trouble and has sort of continued through this. I also like the idea that a bunch of old Boston hc vets with tattoos on their hands coming along and scaring the shit out of some of the bandwagon jumping middle class indie boys doing this sort of thing over the last few years, but the NME will stay well away no doubt. Punk rock.
If you’re not familiar with the bands numerous other releases you will probably get off on this, if you are familiar with the older stuff then it might take a while to digest properly, but it’d be worth it I think.