Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

It’s easy to point New Found Glory in the direction of Blink 182 cuz let’s face it, they’ve made it, everyone else wants to, and Soul Asylum and The Offspring dried up and died eight or nine years ago.  They’re all about energy on their new release whether they’re wailing away about friendship, romance, tragedy, love, or personal growth… in fact they do sound more like The Offspring than Blink but without the sarcasm.  

The tunes are responsible, slickly coated and commercially adept with a definite hit or two or three mixed up within usually mid-range tempos and Pop drawn top-40 infringement—if a tune like “My Friends Over You,” first single, “or “Head On Collision” doesn’t score points on the charts, I’d dare think consumer tastes have numbed out to the evening news.  Epitaph and Fat have been making a lengthy living releasing neatly packaged procedural Punk music for years, so you take the formula a step further and you’ve got half the roster for the summer Vans Warped Tour… or bands like The Ataris, Midtown, and Ozma, a few catchy as hell tunes, one too many sound-alikes, and glee club choruses that’ll raise the ribbons on more than a few female followers.