Labels: Monkey Wrench Records
Review by: Damien Mills
Stay Sharp are a melodic hardcore outfit from Phildelphia and this is apparently their debut release, four songs (duh) of increasingly (as in over the course of the e.p.) melodic punk that initially brings to mind Silent Majority and The Back Up Plan as much as Kid Dynamite et al as claimed in the one-sheet. The first couple of songs barrel out of the speakers with barked gang vocals and chugging guitars until somewhere in the middle it becomes almost Latterman esque with cheerful sounding singalongs and nice melodic guitar parts. One would guess the latter 2 songs were the most recently written and therefore a better display of things to come from the band but all the songs shine in their own way. Perhaps if this were a 7″ it would be neatly split and the whole package might not seem as odd, but generally speaking this is approved stuff.