Review: Shorebirds - It's Gonna Get Ugly

In the last couple of years, PME's (that's Punk Music Enthusiasts, for those of you not in the know) have been blessed with a myriad of bands features members of two truly great and now-defunct punk bands: Jawbreaker and Latterman. As regulars of this blog know by now, Jawbreaker's lead singer, Blake Schwarzenbach was briefly in band called Thorns of Life, before starting his current band forgetters (for whom we are very excited), while the Latterman guys have cropped up in a huge number of bands including (but not limited to) Iron Chic, RVIVR, and the (I'm sorry for this) sadly underwhelming Bridge and Tunnel (somebody has to say it). Now at this point some of you may be saying "Keegan, I thought this review was of some band called Shorebirds, why are you going on at great length about Jawbreaker and Latterman?" And I'll tell you, dear but impatient reader, Shorebirds represents the overlap in the Venn diagram of ex-Latterman and ex-Jawbreaker bands as it features Chris Bauermeister of Jawbreaker on bass, and Matt Canino of Latterman on guitar and yelling.

Fans hoping for a follow-up to Dear You should probably look elsewhere, but people looking for a record to fill the Latterman void, could do a lot worse (they could do Bridge and Tunnel for example). It's Gonna Get Ugly has everything you loved in a Latterman record, just a little less of it. Shouted/sung vocals? They're there but the only time they really get cranked up and raw is on the driving "Circles" which sees Canino spitting out his lyrics as fast as he can over a drum beat that Black Flag is probably still looking for. The political lyrics from Latterman are still there, but they're subtler and less insistent. What I miss most is the anthemic tracks and the fist in the air "everyone-goes-'yeah'-on-this-beat" moments which seem to be lacking on this album. Weirdly enough I have a similar complaint about the new album from The National, but more about that in a couple months.

If you're only going to listen to three tracks off this album (I don't know why anyone would have this rule) they should be:

Track 3: "Upside Down" - Possibly the most anthemic song on the album, also the most feel-good, pump up song. Though in reading the lyrics, I have a sneaking suspicion its about suicide, so what do I know?

Track 4: "Sleeping In" - It has a fun false beginning, it has the same basic idea as the Post Service song of the same name (the world sucks so why wake up) and the F-word gets used about 100 times over the course of just over two minutes.

Track 10: "The Ballad of Marvin Heemeyer" - It's the story of a man who drove an armor-plated bulldozer through several buildings in his town in response to God and a zoning dispute. I think the boys are taking an anti-government message from this one, which works if you don't look too closely.

In all its 12 tracks, weighing in at about 26 and a half minutes with only one song over 3. Solid west coast, rough vocals, pop-punk (the good kind). Shorebirds has an impeccable pedigree, but they don't really need to rely on it, the album stands as a great punk record all on its own.

Shorebirds - Sleeping In
Shorebirds - The Ballad of Marvin Heemeyer

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Shorebirds

Entry Number 100

Today is a special day because it marks the hundredth (is that a word?) post I've made here on the blog. Very exciting. The title gave it away a little didn't it? Anyway, I thought it would be nice to just for one post, go back to what this blog originally was, back when it was called 'Recording a Day' and it was just crappy recordings of my mostly doing bad covers with the occasional original thrown in when I thought I was getting a little too close to being tolerable. So in that spirit, today's post is pretty simple just one song for you listening pleasure, but it's a Kid Omega song so you can see how it hearkens back. This recording is off of a Clark University bands comp called Cougar Tracks which was put together by Adam among others. This song will also appear on KO's upcoming full length, though with a bit more production and better vocals. Oh yeah, and it won't be named for a god damn republican. Enjoy!

Kid Omega - Sununu (not the real title)

I'm Done!

So as of yesterday, I have handed in what is hopefully the last papers of my college career. I'm very excited about this. In addition to lots of other things, it means that I will now have tons of time to start cranking out those reviews I've been threatening you all with the last couple of months. However, I haven't started 'cranking them out' just yet. To help you pass the time, here's a really awesome video by a band I would have loved to review but I kind of missed the boat on. Despite this, the video is too cool not to post.


Living Saints

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