Browsing Tag

Bowling for Soup

Far Below Perfect brought Hawthorne to even greater heights with their pop-punk LP, I’ve Been to Hell Before…

Posted on 26 April 2024

After teaming up with Pop Punk Wolf Records, Hawtorne’s Far Below Perfect is set to unveil his LP, I’ve Been to Hell Before…, which is cataclysmic enough in its cultivation of pop-punk evolution that the genre may never be the same again.

Starting with a glimpse into the Far Below Perfect live experience, the LP shifts into the hit, Isn’t Life Grand?, which echoes the influence of Blink-182 and Bowling for Soup, while the pop-punk agent provocateur blasts through their frenetically fierce progressions at a dizzyingly fast tempo, which only slows to inject some existential humour.

In Where’s Your Hero Now? Far Below Perfect continues to give the thrash pioneers a run for their frantic energy while working in elements which hark back to the legacy of the Beastie Boys. In the following track, Far Below Perfect finds their groove in groove metal while never loosening their grip on iconic emo aesthetics until the track culminates in a rallying cry for anyone who would rather die than surrender.

If anything comes close to a ballad, it is track five, April’s Fool, which injects melodic hooks around the agonised with ennui vocal lines before the following single, Headaches, exhibits the artist’s ability to weave progressive ingenuity into their hits. To conclude the LP, Far Below Perfect channels the bite of punk into the infectious volition of future-forward pop-punk in Be Fri Or St End, and ends the LP on an augmented high with On My Own, which proves that loneliness might be a curse, but people with enough resilience to endure isolation can’t be reckoned with. It’s quite the statement for a one-man pop-punk powerhouse to make.

The I’ve Been to Hell Before… LP will hit the airwaves on April 26th; stream it on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Pop-Punk trailblazer, Brooklyn Belton, unveiled the ultimate adversity aftercare anthem, Just Fine

Posted on 27 April 2023

Starting with an instant hook that sounds like it came straight out of the Bowling for Soup arsenal, the debut single, Just Fine, from the Ohio pop-punk trailblazer, Brooklyn Belton, effortlessly became one of our favourite alt-rock earworms of 2023 so far.

With an instrumental arrangement so tight it is practically corseted, Brooklyn Belton polished the punk rock genre with her anthemic slice of stellar songwriting, which won’t fail to leave you galvanised for the way the exhilarant guitars wrap around her lyrics that compel you to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and deal with the cards of adversity your autonomy has dealt you.

When the chorus comes around, you’ll lose yourselves in the euphoric energy while simultaneously finding yourself in the candid introspection that perceptibly oozes from the wounds of a personal battle.

Just Fine hit the airwaves on April 14. Check it out on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Urban Cafe Crew launched a riotous pop-rock attack on society’s most blindly entitled generation with ‘Hey There Boomer, It’s Not OK’

Posted on 19 January 2023

Australia’s wittiest pop-rock outfit Urban Cafe Crew launched a riotous attack on the generation that set every subsequent one up for failure with their latest single, Hey There Boomer, It’s Not OK.

Every millennial and Gen Z can derive vindicating catharsis from the playfully scathing track that finds an antagonistically hooky way of relaying every boomer sin that has left the earth scorched and financial security out of reach for the majority.

But hey, the boomers had it the worst, right? Their determination to make the world worse for their offspring is warranted, right? They have a right to see any signs of social progression and drag it back with their knuckles that have scarcely been lifted off the floor since 1989, right?

Hey There Boomer, It’s Not OK was officially released on January 14th; check it out on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast