Review
End of a Year
You Are Beneath Me

“To best enjoy this album… try new things”

So starts one of the catchiest records this year this side of the Descendents and Rites Of Spring and maybe you do not fit the description given in this opening soliloquy set to music but that does not mean to stop listening by any means, but rather it puts you in the shoes of the people that have made this record in order to better relate (at least this is how I took it as I chuckled while Patrick Kindlon rattled off his list) to the words and music contained on You Are Beneath Me. No matter how many times that I listen to You Are Beneath Me, the album always feels fresh and energetic and completely fun; somehow, End Of A Year are seamlessly blending some of the best styles of punk and hardcore into one tremendously exuberant mélange of doing whatever they damn well please.

Yes, You Are Beneath Me may draw you in to its addictive wiles as immediately as it drew me, but in any case, you should certainly start to take notice when Kindlon proclaims “Mistletoe tattooed to the crown of my skull / welcome home chapped lips” (one of my favorite lyrical couplets that the band has produced, well I think it is witty anyway) in the first few bars of “Marissa Wendolovske”; I keep listening to this track four or five times in a row before moving on to the rest of the album (if I was picking singles off the album for radio play, this song would be one of the them). The moody “Jeni Leigh” is a certain change of pace for End Of A Year (with the female vocals it could almost be considered the band’s ballad) and also the second song that I get stuck on while listening to the record (I again listen to this one probably five or six times before moving on to the rest of the record); the song brings to my mind Lou Reed’s classic track “Walk On The Wild Side” when the female vocals kick in to aural focus, and while this is not the sole reason that the piece is addicting to me, it is the icing on the cake that makes this single number two if I was picking them. I would be remiss not to mention the pure energy of “Eddie Antar” (again the lyrical opening sets the tone for the whole song, “So you wonder what men want / well here’s a heads up / everything and then add some…” while the angular guitars just drive it home); such a classic End Of A Year track, it is one of those to make sure that you hear.

For those people that fixate on the sound of the vocals and how they “would like the band if there was a better vocalist or singer or what have you”, get a clue because punk rock was never about sounding like your autotuned to hell electro pop nonsense that you secretly listen to when trying to hook up with people; End Of A Year never claim to be any more than the punk rock band that they are and “Composite Character” (the track that opens the album) is aimed squarely at you. You Are Beneath Me is definitely the best that the band has “put to tape” thus far in their prolific life as a band, (the pace of the album is spot on the mark, the songs are all catchy as hell, and the lyrics are as biting and sarcastic as ever) and people are missing out on a great record if they skip out on it.