Weekend Warm-Up No. 3: Punk That Pops
–Words and list by Kevin Madert
Nothing quite compares to the all-around upbeat nature of a well-crafted pop-punk tune. Major chord progressions, scything drum kicks, and positive to a fault lyrics delivered with a boyish (or girlish) smirk. My inner 10th grader couldn’t help but pump his fist and pretend every word was written to describe me. Whether on the heavy side – “Beatdown in the Key of Happy” and “The Downfall of Us All” drip with post-hardcore – or lighter fare – “Everything Is Alright” and “Plays Pretty For Baby” for starters – it’s all nostalgic, and it’s all too damn catchy.
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Weekend Warm-Up No. 2: 30 Minutes Or Less
–Words and list by Michael Hogan
Like the inverse of the pizza delivery guys, prepare yourselves for an aural blitzkrieg this week. We crammed an hour’s worth of tunes into less than 30 minutes with a barrage of punk and pop-punk; from The Story So Far back to Alkaline Trio. For good measure we threw in one of the most frantic songs hardcore legends Converge have ever written, just in case the other nine songs weren’t quite fast-paced enough. So get up, jump around, break some shit, and enjoy your weekend.
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Review: Four Year Strong’s Career-Affirming “Go Down In History”
–Written by Michael Hogan
Every city has their hometown heroes – those bands they’re going to cheer on no matter where they go, be it the other side of the world or that shitty VFW down the street. They’re so meaningful to so many different people that the very idea of them brings a city together, rallying behind them in support of every show, every new album, every single.
When I lived in Boston, we were incredibly lucky to have a huge and diverse music scene. Everything from post-hardcore and metal to pop-punk and hardcore was equally represented. Hell, we can even lay claim to some extremely talented progressive and post-rock bands.
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Review: Handguns’ Quintessentially Pop-Punk “Life Lessons”
–Written by Michael Hogan
It’s been nearly 4 years since I’ve played in a band. That really sucks, but life happens; I moved back home, finished up school, got a big boy job, all the good shit. I still work with music, I just never got around to joining another band. Sometimes I would get the fleeting urge to start back up, reflecting to myself, “Man, that was awesome.” For much of those last four years, it’s been anything but an all-consuming feeling. The way I saw it, if it happened again one day that would be cool, but it wasn’t a really pressing thing.
That isn’t really the case anymore, and I place a lot of the blame for that on pop-punk.
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