Imagine it's the last part of 90's and you're some wide-eyed kid who thinks you're older late-teens brother is the coolest person in world. Your older brother also plays guitar in a cool band and owns records by bands named Texas is the Reason, The Get Up Kids, The Movielife, and Braid. One sad day your brother heads off to college, however before he goes he gives a final Chinese Haircut farewell, he gives you his guitar and a few mix CDs of 90's emo greatest hits. That scenario must have happened a lot in the last decade since there's been a sudden influx of scrawny kids playing melodic emo rock whose influences are worn as blatant as that all over print hoodie and those skinny jeans they all clad themselves with. Transit is yet another one of these bands. Everything on This Will Not Define Us reminds of emo's past even though its done by people ten years my junior.
This Will Not Define Us is a bubbly snappy record with drifting melodies flowing from east to west of the songs only to be defined by moody breakdowns. The bridges use every emo trick in the book from screaming, youth crew shout-a-longs, swirling Brand New type interludes, and even some snatches of acoustic guitars. I'm sure it gets everyone in the crowd to sing along, clapping their hands, and adds on Myspace. Girls probably clamber into their parents' SUVs after the show and text to absent friends how cute their favorite member of Transit is.
Speaking girls, I wouldn't doubt that every song on This Will Not Define Us is about the fairer sex. Songs like "Castaway" and "Lexington Park, 11:33" confirm that suspicion. "Castaway" could almost tie Phil Collins's "I Hear it on the Air Tonight" as the most creepy pop song about witnessing a drowning when not actually witnessing a drowning and using drowning as metaphor for a song.
Transit isn't all that bad. If I was eighteen or nineteen I would probably really like this band. The band knows how take their influences and craft some decent melodies, which turn into some head bobbing foot tapping ditties. I could imagine this band blowing up with the kids that really don't know what pop-punk is and call anything somewhat melodic that has songs about chicks, "pop-punk." Oh those goofy, confused youths. I guess I only have elder emo kids to blame for this sudden deluge of catchy cutesy emo pop bands that everyone half my age can't seem to get enough of. Good for them.
