Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

I can’t get it out of my CD player. What else can I tell you? Hardcore energy plus five guys who can actually play their instruments, and play cohesively plus an uplifting, positive message, so I don’t have to turn the system off every time my ten year old daughter wanders into the room. I can also crank it up, if I so desire, in the line at the auto ATM or at Sonic Drive-In to prompt the Gump in front of me to snap it up and get the transaction done while we’re all still young. Yes, I know, such an attitude contraindicates the spirit with which Take It Back! has created and released CAN’T FIGHT ROBOTS, but I’m working on it.

Take It Back! is a quintet from Fayetteville, Arkansas; their musical prowess and compositional skills belie their youth. CAN’T FIGHT ROBOTS is an extremely accessible work for being a hardcore project, though, to paraphrase Dwight Yoakam, Take It Back! isn’t constrained by hardcore because they don’t seem to be constrained to hardcore. “Together Burning Bright!” sounds like a collaboration between Green Day and Beastie Boys, for example. Each of the tracks starts off sounding like something and then becomes…something else. “These Days” intro almost lulls you into thinking it might be a really, really20good power ballad and then makes a left turn into speed metal land and then goes off on another, slower but heavier, path. The band is also not afraid to try its hand at an anthem, “Lights In This Town,” which should be well-received during the ambitious tour that Take It Back! is currently undertaking.

A word about their lyrics: Take It Back! does not soft soap their message at all. I felt as if I was on a 300 m.p.h. car chase at times, particularly on “The Truth” and “Time Waits For No Man,” which should be a favorite with many. There isn’t a loser track on CAN’T FIGHT ROBOTS, however, so it’s entirely possible that your favorite track will change with the continuous listening you will do to this project from beginning to end and back. Recommended.