The Lawrence Arms
We Are the Champions of the World (A Retrospectus)
Fat Wreck Chords (2018)
The excitement of We Are the Champions of the Word (Retrospectus) is supposed to be the five new songs at the end of the 29-song collection. It probably is, but given how bands often release a Best Of before they breakup, this record feels more worrisome than celebratory. That’s just a personal feeling that views this as some kind of … Read more
The Loved Ones
Build & Burn
Fat Wreck Chords (2008)
Build & Burn begins with what ostensibly sounds like an unsure Loved Ones. The first three tracks are throwbacks of three very different styles of punk rock. The first song "Pretty Good Year," a b-side from Keep Your Heart, finds the band treading ground already heard on previous releases, adding more of a pop element to the more rock than … Read more
The Loved Ones
Build & Burn
Fat Wreck Chords (2008)
The Loved Ones entered my radar with their first EP for Jade Tree, which converted me with "100K," a staccato blast that sounded like Hot Water Music after a handful of amphetamines. Any doubts I may have had vanished with the release of 2006's Keep Your Heart, an unassuming bucket of anthems that sounds almost like Shock Troops updated for … Read more
The Loved Ones
Distractions
Fat Wreck Chords (2009)
The Loved Ones' popularity took off quite a bit last year with the release of Build & Burn. This had the band taking a more basic rock-n-roll approach than their debut Keep Your Heart, which is one of the best pop-punk records to be released in recent years. The band's latest EP, Distractions shows the band going in the same … Read more
The Loved Ones
Keep Your Heart
Fat Wreck Chords (2006)
It's 2:11am on Friday morning and I'm sitting in my room in my boxers eating Frito Scoops and realizing that I am disastrously single. So I go to where everyone hooks up these days, Myspace, and start to peruse the various profiles of women in Minnesota ages 25-35. When I see a potential maiden of my manly charms, I almost … Read more
The Sainte Catherines
Dancing for Decadence
Fat Wreck Chords (2006)
D-Beat hardcore is becoming a quite liked genre even outside of the shower-once-a-month hardcore cretins. Hell even one those little pukes in From First to Last was recently seen in a Tragedy shirt in a promo photo for their latest album entitled I Killed my Girlfriend with my Spiky $500 Dollar Haircut and then Pouted about it. D-Beat hardcore, for … Read more
The Suicide Machines
Revolution Spring
Fat Wreck Chords (2020)
Me: The Suicide Machines got really angry.[Looks at news coming out of Michigan.]Me: Oh, yeah. They should be.Flint’s waters crisis, militias, the widespread issues of race, violence and inequality across the US…Sure, this is 1990s-styled ska-punk. But it’s not your dance party, silly costume ska-punk. Much like Battle Hymns of 1998, Revolution Spring is angry and political. I kind of … Read more
Western Addiction
Frail Bray
Fat Wreck Chords (2020)
There are bands who you rush to get the new record to see what direction they’ve gone. There are others you return to time-after-time because they have a style and they’ve nailed it. File Western Addition in the latter category. Frail Bray continues their West Coast melodic hardcore tradition without any surprise changes-of-direction.The band plays what used to be called … Read more
Western Addiction
Tremulous
Fat Wreck Chords (2017)
Has it really been 12 years since Cognicide? Well, Western Addiction are back with another single word, make-you-think album title in Tremulous. They may have skipped releasing records for the entire Obama presidency (plus some), but the band didn’t mellow with age.Tremulous is 11 songs of melodic hardcore. Led by Chad Williams’ power drumming, Williams punctuates the sound while the … Read more
