Review
Guff
Engine Trouble

Go Kart (2003) Sean

Guff – Engine Trouble cover artwork
Guff – Engine Trouble — Go Kart, 2003

Sometimes I really wonder about people. I turn on the television and I see rape, murder, and complete apathy towards the billions of human beings living on 40 cents a day. It's time for a change, it's time for a revolution to make everyone on Earth stop in their tracks and think about things in a brand new way, so that maybe there is hope for this world yet.

Guff bring that revolution. Forging elements of pop and punk into an exciting new genre called "pop-punk". Their palm-muted guitars, overuse of pick slides, and melancholy lyrics filled with references to failed relationships and other trials and tribulations of being a misled youth are going to forever change the shape and sound of today's music. The boys in Guff spit in the face of interesting song structure, intelligence, and good songwriting, and instead cherish a new approach to music. This approach consists of lacking a strong pop sense, completely shattering the preconceptions that a good pop song and a smart pop sense go hand in hand. "Who needs a memorable catchy tune when you can write boring ones that sound a lot like 143,774 other bands?", asks the members of Guff. Song titles like "Scars are Tough Too" and "Yesterday Seems" you know you're in for an album packed with emotion, innovation, and truly amazing songwriting. "With a terrible, or as they like to say, "unconventional", vocalist and repetitive chord progressions, Guff are sure to leave their mark on every band to follow from this day on.

Oh I feel the tides a-changin', I feel the winds a-rearrangin'. I think this "pop-punk" thing is going to be huge.

3.0 / 10Sean • February 28, 2004

Guff – Engine Trouble cover artwork
Guff – Engine Trouble — Go Kart, 2003

Recently-posted album reviews

Armor for Sleep

There Is No Memory
Equal Vision (2025)

Armor For Sleep return with an album that treats memory like a weapon. It’s delicate, devastating, and impossible to disarm. For those who may not be as old as me and missed their emergence into the emo/indie scene, the Teaneck, New Jersey band started in 2001. Led by frontman Ben Jorgensen, they dropped gems like Dream to Make Believe (2003) … Read more

Imploders

Targeted For Termination
Neon Taste Records, Static Shock Records (2025)

Back in or around 2007 my buddy Jake invited me to a show, I’m not even sure he told me who was playing or if he did I hadn’t heard of them yet anyway. Turns out it was Toronto’s Career Suicide who were on tour with Regulations from Sweden. Both bands fucking ripped and I still remember being pretty blown … Read more

Imperial Domain

Portentum
Wormhole Death (2025)

Formed in 1995, Imperial Domain cut their teeth in the Swedish death metal underground with early demos before dropping In the Ashes of the Fallen (1998) and The Ordeal (2003). After the 2014 death of original vocalist, Tobias Heideman, Imperial Domain could’ve folded into the past like so many of their era. Instead, they came back swinging. The band returned … Read more