Labels: Fueled by Ramen
Review by: Mark Skold
If you look up “pogo-punk” in the wanky dictionary of music genres, you will almost certainly see a picture of the Teen Idols. They’ve been around for a good while, they have a significant fan-base around the world, and they rock out pop-punk tunes like their lives depend on it.
Since we last heard from them on 2000’s “Full Leather Jacket”, there’s been a couple changes. They replaced their singer and moved from the infamous Honest Don’s to the infamous Fueled By Ramen in the US, and Golf in the UK. The well-oiled Teen Idol machine, however, is still running at full pelt.
More often than not, when bands replace their singer it’s quite similar to signing a release suggesting “we’ll never sound quite the same as we did with the old guy”. Luckily, this is not the case with Kevin, the new Teen Idols vocalist. Without seeing the different name in the liner notes, you’d never know that the change had even happened. So, HOORAY! It’s the Teen Idols we know and love!
And it sure is. Super duper happy, bouncy singalongs. Twelve of ’em in all (a little mean for a pop-punk record, don’t you think?). The record opens with the future classic “Backstabber”, which sports the ultra cool line “shaking one hand while the other one’s twisting the knife”. The “heys” and “woahs” of “The Longest Walk”, the awesome harmonies present on about every tune…. It’s nothing earth shattering, but by god it’s fun!
The rest of the formula blasts out as you’d hope it would. Punk-fast drumming, oh-so-simple-and-catchy songs, the superb girl back-up vocals… I could go on. But I won’t. You should hear it for yourself.
Got pop-punk? Not without this record, you don’t.