Aaahhhh, Pop-Punk, the sweet smell of pre-teen rebellion. Cutely named UK band, You Had Me At Hello! are dropping their debut album, Take It Off (I’m assuming off means ‘Your Pants and Jacket’) at the beginning of June.
This album really can’t be taken seriously, it’s an imitative throw-back to a genre that disintegrated almost ten years ago, when the fans hit puberty. The genre itself makes a mockery of its anarchic rebellious roots. It uses simple pop melodies to draw in its audience and adds bunny hop drums to keep them moving, not to mention the lyrics, which generally have less substance than a Christmas card from your second cousin. Sadly this album displays all of the above; six inconsequential party-hop tracks for guys to fall off their skateboards and girls to get ready for prom to.
But who cares. If you were pre-pubescent in the glory days of Sum41, Blink182 and Hop321 (the latter being imaginary) this album will remind you of the days you wanted to be Tony Hawk, you thought WWE was real and the guys from Jackass were your role-models. The album has ‘fun’ written all over it, it’s catchy, happy, uptempo, not overproduced and some of the riffs almost sound like rock music. They probably put on a good show too. So if you’ve got a soft spot for pop-punk in your childhood heart, download the album and slap a smile on your face for its 24 minute duration.
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