Reviews

Damn The Copyrights. Damn them to hell. I have not been able to get Make Sound out of my head since I started listening to it, and not one or two songs, the whole thing. The chorus of “Thinking With The Lights On” will start inside my brain, I’ll shake it off, then “Unsatisfied” will take its place. And you know what singing The Copyrights all day makes me do? Go home and listen to the album again and again. I’ve had this album for a week and I’ve already listened to it like 20 times.
 
It strikes me that this is probably the sign of good pop-punk. Besides the obvious commercial appeal of the subgenre, a lot of pop-punk initially sounds nasally and fairly trite to me. So when my first listen to Make Sound produced no such reaction, I knew I was hooked. Besides, it’s summertime, what better to take residence in your head than pop-punk not made for 12-year-olds?
 
Make Sound is split in “two sides,” with the first track and the eighth track starting with the sound of a tape being put in a cassette player. It’s pretty representative of the album’s nostalgic love for simplicity, both sound and content-wise.
 
The first song, “Kids of the Black Hole,” may be my favorite—with its cheery chant-a-long chorus, “Some say it’s a black hole/ but this town is a place we call home.” Listen to it and try not singing along. It’s scientifically impossible.
 
“The Company” was also a real standout track for me. It continues the energetic, three-chord, belt-it-out sound carried on the album. Bassist Adam Fletcher’s voice is more substantial than most pop-punk vocalists, but it sounds particularly good alongside Brendan Kelly’s signature gritty delivery on this one. Along with The Methadone’s Dan Schafer and Rivethead’s Zack Rivethead, Brendan appears a couple times on Make Sound, which is a welcome addition, but not particularly surprising considering Red Scare is kind of his puppet regime label (although it’s actually run by a guy named Toby Jeg). By the way, for such a small label, the sound quality on Red Scare always impresses me, with this album being no exception.
 
The content follows standard pop-punk lines. The fourteen songs are about girls, good times, bad times, fucking up, and enjoying life for what it is. For example, “1994, fucked up on Listerine/ Smoked anything we got our hands on/ Loved anyone we got our lips on/ Made excuses to not like Green Day/ But we wore the tape out anyway.”
 
So thanks to the absolutely infectious Make Sound, Red Scare can boast another pop-infused success; the incestuous Chicago punk rock scene has another great drinking record, and I’ve got a pretty unhealthy addiction to The Copyrights.