More Kicks - Punch Drunk CD

Dirtnap / Stardumb (2022)

Your eyes do not deceive you.  This is a CD as it was sent to me to check out and write about.  So check it out I did.  I actually have the first More Kicks record that came out in 2019, but I really didn't remember it.  I listened to it back when it came out and then it just vanished into the collection and wasn't anything that had much staying power for me.  It's not that it wasn't good, looking back on what I wrote about it back then was positive and it even snuck into my top 10 records of that year.  It just didn't stick with me for whatever reason.

I feel like this new album might have a similar fate.  It's very obviously good.  Maybe bordering on great.  The hooks are there, the vocal harmonies are delightful and the general vibe is pretty much the sort of thing I enjoy listening to.  Do you like The Resonars?  This is probably better as it's more straight forward.  Do you dig The Cute Lepers?  I can't imagine you not liking this as even though the songs aren't quite as maniacally fast, they have a lot in common.  Do you appreciate the vocal stylings of Wiz from Mega City Four?  This might be the closest thing I've ever heard.

Even with all of those supremely favorable comparisons, the record is just not hitting me as hard as I feel like it should.  On paper, it's perfect.  Listening to it, there's just a little something missing that I cannot put my finger on.  Perhaps it's just me.  Maybe I need to spend more time with it.  Maybe I'm just getting old and stuck on the older bands from my youth.  Maybe some of the pressures of everyday life aren't allowing me to be in the right sort of mood to really enjoy this for what it is.  I can't say I know for sure.  It's a bit of a puzzle that I can't crack.  All I can say is that this is a really, really good power pop record.  I just don't know if I need another one of those right now.

More Kicks - Punch Drunk:
https://dirtnaprecords.bandcamp.com/album/more-kicks-punch-drunk

Four Lights - Kobayashi Maru LP - Blue Vinyl

Bomb Pop / Stardumb (2018)

Four Lights hail from Seattle and they actually played at the incredible Seattle Pop Punk Festival that I went to in January.  There were a ton of great bands that played that weekend and it was pretty cool to have this album show up in the mail.  Whatever magic Four Lights had as a live band that weekend has absolutely transferred to this album.  It's a gigantic ball of energy from start to finish.

To my ears, Four Lights has successfully threaded the needle between bands like Samiam and Superdrag.  They have the big, crunchy guitars and pounding energy you'd come to expect from the Samiams of the world.  But, they manage to incorporate the sort of hooks, song structures and harmonies that one might expect from some of those Superdrag level bands that snuck onto some major labels back in the 90s (only to end up in the used CD bins of the world for all eternity).

That isn't to say Four Lights is destined for the used bin.  Quite the contrary, this is an album filled with songs that get absolutely lodged into your cranium.  Whether the band is blasting forward full steam on songs like "ComRAD" and "We Got Em"or when they slow things down as they do on "Scene of the Crime" and "Jimmy's Song Part 2" (which reminds me a ton of the band Hospital Job) they always deliver on a big fat chorus that you'll be humming for days afterwards.  I'd not heard of Four Lights prior to the Seattle Pop Punk Festival, but I'm sure glad I did as Kobayashi Maru is good stuff.

Four Lights - Kobayashi Maru:
https://fourlightsrock.bandcamp.com/album/kobayashi-maru