Reviews

Broadway Calls

Broadway Calls

Released: Jul 10, 2007
Label: State of Mind Recordings
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2 comments

At some point, I realized everyone's a victim. Everyone has a myspace.com account with shitty poetry blogs and everyone's an individual, with deeper thoughts, more self discontent, and an even firmer grasp on life and love and sex than the one before them. No one's looking for a summer soundtrack anymore, but an album to remind them that eventually winter will come again. I'm not sure how else to address a generation who defines themselves by their hardships rather than achievements, perhaps to qualify what they are doing wrong with some of social value. So, how about something pop-punk?

Broadway Calls, in their new full length self titled album, manages to remind me of the good pop-punk can produce without the "snotty attitude." Managing to accomplish the daunting task of smearing genre lines (as I could see them playing shows with traditional punk or even select hardcore punk bands), they've released a CD jammed with energy from beginning to end. Even their slowed down tracks like "Life is in the Air" provide something most albums in a similar vein lack. Perhaps even more impressive is their mastery of an uncanny ability that pop-punk has lacked in the past; writing an effective ballad in "Meet Me at Washington Park."

If it wasn't hard enough finding a pop-punk band who didn't dress like Depeche Mode, it's even harder to find one with infectious vocal melodies that don't compete with one another, or musicians that complement each other rather than marching in a gloomy, self-aggrandizing wanker parade individually.

I always make the same mistake of trying name bands with a similar sound to the artist in question, always to hear, "No way dickhead! They sound just like [insert obsolete mid-nineties emo band here]!" So, I won't do that now. But for fans of vocal harmonies, topics that aren't all post graduation high school psychobabble, and just plain enjoying oneself, I would give Broadway Calls' new self titled album a listen