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As I sit here, eating a late-night bowl of Lucky Charms, I am reminded of simpler times. Eighth grade times, to be exact. Waking up early enough to eat breakfast, riding the bus, and pop-punk. Eighth grade being the year I discovered pop-punk, or what I defined as pop-punk (maybe probably even punk, the point is, it wasn't). Flash forward to 2009, the year I discovered the Max Levine Ensemble. Even with all the catchiness contained within, I feel bad for calling this pop-punk, lest you group it with bands like Sum 41 and New Found Glory. But, I mean, this is such an assault of catchy hooks, bodacious beats, and Spoonboy's voice that it can't really be considered anything else. If you put this on at a party, you can probably expect everyone there to be dancing by the time 'Aren't All Songs Political? Aren't All Songs Vaugely Self-Referential?' comes on. If they aren't, check their pulses.
When I talked to Toby Foster at a show and asked his permission to upload this album, he told me that I could on the condition that I didn't talk shit about the band. Condition met.
At the time of this recording, Arkansas? was officially a two-piece consisting of Toby Foster and Victor Vieira-Branco. Both guys sing on this release, with Toby taking a bulk of the songs. The album opener is 'Facebook', a song about Facebook breakups that actually happened to my friend Zach. A few songs later, '45' provides the album with an awesome track that has never failed to make me smile. In fact, this album has never really failed to make me smile. The playful guitars, combined with the excellent drumming really give this album a solid pop-punk foundation to dance upon, and I'm not talking metaphorically about the music. This album is 100% danceable, no matter if you're dancing to forget the bruises these songs remind you of or if you're just dancing from the sheer optimism this album puts out. Songs like 'Hash Browns' give off great vibes while not sacrificing musical integrity or sounding too corny. I really almost feel like I'm doing this album a disservice by writing about it, because that probably means you, the reader, aren't listening to it and you don't feel happy as I do when I listen to it. If you want to buy it (which you really should do because it's awesome and so is the 1/3 of this band that I've met), you can go to Arkansas?'s MySpace. It's on there.P.S. On the song 'Dance Moves', Toby mentions that he stole dance moves from a guy named Evan Gornik. Evan Gornik and Toby Foster recently put out a split 12" that will probably wind up being one of my favorite albums of 2009. There's not a bad song from either artist on there, seriously. You can get it here if there are any copies left, or from a show maybe. Trust me, it's great.
This is band solidarity.
I just stumbled upon this album recently myself, but it's good. Formed in early 90s Seattle, this band really took the West Coast punk sound and ran with it. Think a popper Jawbreaker with irreverent lyrics that involve Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch, Carl Sagan, and "gettin' drunk offa sunshine". This doesn't mean you should like it any less, however. This music is carefree and fun. It's totally danceable and just has a genuine feel to it. Some songs are good music for riding bikes, while some songs are good music for skateboarding. This album kind of epitomises the "nerd rock" side of punk at the time. It's a shame these guys didn't get bigger, because many of their contemporaries did and Sicko opened for some pretty big bands at the time. Basically, I feel like this album is the album my teenage soul would write if my teenage soul lived in Seattle in the early 90s. Plus, the guy in the middle of the picture totally kind of looks like Bradford Cox of Deerhunter.
Pop-punk.
I'm sorry for not writing more, but all my files were just deleted off my iPod and none of them were backed up.
