After the 1999 album “Hot To Meet Girls”, Nerf Herder are back with a new Ep. on Joey Cape’s own record label: My Records. Not for a bad reason this EP is called “My EP”.

Nerf Herder really never impressed me very much. I like their poppy punk sound and I like the jokes in their songs, from “Courtney” to “Pantera Fans In Love” and “Lamer Than Lame”, but I never thought this band is as good as they want people to think: they just heard a lot of Weezer songs and they learned the lesson pretty well. They have the fantasy of writing funny lyrics, and maybe they learned this by such bands as The Bloodhound Gang, with whom they also toured.

Anyway, this new EP is nothing different from the past: they took 6 previously recorded songs (or seven, if you also count the ghost track “Come Back Down”) and threw them on one only record; such songs as “The Sportsman Bar” (about a bar where everyone gets always drunk), “Love Sandwich” and “I’ve Got A Boner For Christmas” are just fun, there is no doubt about it , and they are catchy and radio friendly too, I’d listen to them for hours. But the song that made me say :”Is this a Vandals song?” is “Bridge Under Troubled Water”: the first part is very similar to The Vandals’ style, and the lyric, as always, is filled with funny phrases as “when you need a friend blah-blah-blah-blah-blah” or even “Am I drunk enough? Am I stupid enough? Am I lazy enough? Smell a skunk enough?”.

The EP is very short, you will not even notice to have bought this and have it in your stereo, although the songs are someway funny and catchy. If you like Californian three-chord pop-punk and melodies, I’d say this record is for you, even if Parry Gripp and his Nerf Herder did not invent anything.

Randy is not a new band, and althought a lot of kids go around saying they know all about punk bands and then say that this is the third Randy album, “The Human Atom Bombs” is the 7th or 8th album from these punk pioneers from Sweden. The other new bands you hear from Sweden are just “sons” or Randy, because these four dudes have been around since 1990 and even before. So, after the re-release of their records “There is No Way We’re Gonna Fit In” and “The Rest Is Silence” (both on Burning Heart ) the band is releasing a new record on Burning Heart/Epitaph. After the masterpiece “You Can’t Keep A Good Band Down”, that signed a kind of progression (and a change) in the sound of the band, as, when they begun, they played quite fast punk-rock and with that record Randy started playing punk’77 or street-punk or whatever it is called.

“The Human Atom Bombs” finally signs a decent record from Burning Heart Records, that may also be releasing good albums but nothing really special; instead, Randy are special! If musically they sound like a bastard mix among The Clash, The Dead Kennedys, with some fast songs as “Addict Of Communication” , rock n’ roll songs as “Chicken Shack”, and also slow reggae-influenced songs like “Karl Marx And History”, the most important part in Randy are the lyrics: these make theme different from almost all the “punk” bands around today.

They sing about politics in an open way, with some humor here and there, and if you listen to them for the first time you will think with no doubt that they are communist or socialist or anyway of the left wing. They may be compared to such bands as Propagandhi, Anti Flag and Satanic Surfers, as their involvement in politics is very radical, not only in the lyrics but also in the artwork ( if you happen to see the cover of their record “The Rest Is Silence” you will understand), with clear references to Marx, the communism, the fight between the proletarian and the capitalists and the defense of the rights of the workers.

Maybe the average listeners of pop-punk or emo will find this hard to listen to, but it is surely a good album and pretty clever too, and finally Burning Heart is releasing some better stuff that before.

Inspection 12 is the newest band that joined the Honest Don’s roster, that is the same label as Fat: the only difference is the logo on the back of the CD…another difference is that Honest is releasing so only many good pop CD’s, like Bad Astronaut and Big In Japan . Inspection12 comes from Jacksonville, in Florida, where there are a lot of growing new punk bands, like Yellowcard over all. These four boys play pop punkvery well, influenced not only by pop music, but also with some violins, a piano, a cello and some un-usual stuff for a punk band. “In Recovery” is their debut album on a big label, after they released an EP and three self-produced records; it has 12 songs and so many infectious melodies, sing-along choruses and clever lyrics, not just silly teenage issues but also deep subjects as love and friendship. Best songs are surely “Sweet Sixteen”, “Red Letter Day” ( where you can also hear Joy Cape from Lagwagon singing), “To the Victor Go The Spoils” and “Great Scott”. For all the fans of pop-punk!

Someone said Osker is the most hated band on Epitaph Records, for some strange reasons I didn’t even get that well…actually I believe they are good musicians, and if you consider their age, they are even better.I just wondered why on this record there is only Devon ( guitaris, singer) and Dave ( bass, backup vocals), while their old drummer is not in the band anymore.

After touring with such bands as Guttermouth, Millencolin, Automatic 7, after the debut album “Treatment 5″, of which I only heard a couple of songs like “Panic”, “Lucky” and “Alright” ( I mean, the PunkORama songs) that I liked pretty much, the second album from Osker, “Idle Will Kill”, is a bit different from those songs I heard from their old work ( not even that old, as it was released last year) and probably this new record shows how Osker grow up in the producton, and did the things with their own time, hitting the studio with Mike Trujillio (Choking Victim, Leftover Crack) as producer.

If on “Treatment5″ they sounded with some influences from Rancid and the pop-punk world ( like Green Day ) , “Idle Will Kill” is a 14 tracks album that is more oriented through emotion, both in the lyrics ( that are more personal) and in the music; it has some kind of slow songs (as “Motionless”) and even if the opening “Patience” is a semi-acoustic song, the record has some fast tracks too, like “Strangled” and “Piece By Piece”. Another positive thing of this record is the voice of the singer, that is someway unique: when you listen to a Osker song, you probably know it is Osker’s, there are not other similar singers with his voice in the punk scene today.

The words of Devon, the singer, are enough to make understand what Osker is about, according to his definition of “punk”: “Punk is doing what you want despite the infiltrators, outside of the skateboards and shoes and hair and patches and the diets and the tattoo.”

If De Heideroosjes are the most famous punk band from The Netherlands, Undeclinable can easily be considered the second one, maybe together with I Against I. Once they were known as Undeclinable Ambuscade, but, after releasing “One For the Momey” and “Their Greatest Adventures”, aftear touring with Bad Religion, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Ten Foot Pole to name a few, these five Dutch boys decided to change their name. Althought this change in the name, you may notice that their logo is still and “A” with an “U” in it…and they said they keep their old logo to remember their roots. Weird choice, like if they want to forget their past but remember something in the meantime.

Talking of less boring things, “Sound City Burning” has 16 songs ( well, let’s say 15, as the track 13 is 4 seconds long and is only silence) that sound someway different from their old stuff; the band started with fast songs like “Snowboard” and their evolution in the sound kept them where they are now: a music that is an hibrid between pop-punk and emo-core. A song like the “Lipsdick Fantasies” can be easily mistaken for a Blink182 or a pop-punk song in general, although here there are some great harmonies in the voices, when there are almost three guys singing. Also, the lyric of this song is someway funny, as I can understand from the title; just to give an idea, it is a bit like “Stroking My Cat” by Diesel Boy, but the cat here is stroken by a woman.

The other songs are quite slow, as “LAPD”, that has only a mid-tempo chorus, in the vein of the latest Bad Religion sound, or even “Lonely And Burning”, with slow but long choruses. The fastest tune is “What You Stand For” ( that is 1:10 minutes long) and is so fast that only when it’s over you are able to realize it is a song; but there are is also “Waiting For the Catering” and “Bed To the Bar” that caught my attention for their speedy guitar riffs and harmonies.

Probably the song that will gain more success is the cover of Joe Jackson “Is She Really Going Out With Him?”, that I already heard and appreciated covered by that great band named Goldfinger, so this song comes like nothing new to me; it is very very similar to the Goldfinger interpretation, maybe the band covered it after hearing the John Feldman’s band.

Anyway, if you never heard this band, my only advice is to pick up “Sound City Burning”, an album that might not change the life of the old fans, but that will surely help Undeclinable to get new fans all over the world.

Take Off Your Pants And Jacket, right now! Actually leave them on. After almost two years without a full-length album of new material I expected Blink 182’s chief song writers (Mark Hoppus and Tom Delonge) to return to their roots with solid pop-punk songs. My expectations were obviously too high. This album is plagued by over-production and it is amazingly lyrically insufficient. After listening to the cd all the way through more than once, I came way feeling the lyrics were written in a last minute attempt to slap words into music. The lyrics are remarkably childish, even for this band. Blink continues the sound they established on Enema of The State. Every track has potential, but it seems cut short or arranged just for a “certain” audience. Original sounding arrangements (for this band) are almost inexistent, but there is a strong departure from their trademark sound on “Stay Together For The Kids”. The dual vocals seem to battle each other while a backdrop of equally as interesting soft and driving guitar parts matches the aural bloodshed. Tracks one, seven, and thirteen, are worth hearing once. There is not a real difference between this album and EOTS. The band has not matured at all. These guys are almost 30 and they still sing about high school, dating (married), and kids. “It’s all about the benjamins,” now. Haunted by “success” the band has nowhere to go. I guess they feel they have to stay on the path that lead them there. Eventually their sound will become stale and even their current audience will abandon them.

De Heideroosjes (pronounced “Hi-Duh-Rose-Yuh’s”), together with Undeclinable, I Against I, Burning Heads, Terrorgruppe and The Beatsteaks, are one of the European bands signed to Epitaph Records. De Heideroosjes ( which literally means “weadow flowers” or something like this ) is in particular the most famous punk outfit out of The Netherlands, as they played as supporter for a lot of famous international bands over there, for example they opened for Bad Religion, Pennywise, Die Toten Hosen and The Offspring, and Noodles himslef said De Heideroosjes were one of their favourite punk band ever. From the title and the cover of their seventh record (the third of Epitaph, after “Smile You’re Dying” and “Schizo”) it is easy to realize that “Fast Forward” is an album with fast songs, from the beginning to the end. The opening track “Nimby ( Not In My Backyard)” is a 1:38 kickin’ and angry song about politics. The only slow tune may be “We’re All Fucked Up”, that has some re-calls to the folk-punk music, in the vein of The Dropkick Murphy’s, but this is the only an exception. “3 Needs 2 Get A Grip” reminds a lot of the classic Pennywise sound, as it seems it was taken from their record “About Time”; “Billy Broke A Bottle ( Again)” is a great song with a great lyric about an asshole that beats up his wife when he’s drunk; “Tattoo” is about freedom, “Some Lines About A Love Song” is a love song with a lyric against love songs (???). The album is closed by the ruling “Since 1989″, a song that will be probably sung by all the fans at De Heideroosjes’ shows. If you are looking for fast punk songs with melody, choruses, intense and clever lyrics with some fun, look for “Fast Forward”, because it is just a great album from a great band, althought it may be hard to find, as it is released in Europe only.

I never heard Shades Apart very well, I have never been into this band a lot, I only heard their cover of “Tainted Love” on some compilation on Hopeless Records and their song was one of the best of that album…this new CD does not bring anything new to the rock scene in general, but it is damned catchy: Shades Apart plays very good poppunk with a rock edge , like a mix between The Descendents and Foo Fighters, with both fast and slow songs. The fourteen track “Sonic Boom” is their second album on a major label, after the 1999 “Eyewitness”, and after going separated ways from the indie record label Revelation. The thing that characterizes this album is that it has songs that are all on the same level , no better no worse, there is not a potential hit single ( even if the band chose “Beat By Beat”); other songs that attracted my attention are “Gravity” “Rebel Teenager From Mars” and “Superzero”, but do not trust this too much, becasue , as I said, all the songs are potential singles and it is not easy to say which is the best track of this CD. If you are looking for some fresh pop insipred music for your summer, Shades Apart may be your soundtrack.

If you happen to be fond of pop-punk or to be checking the punk charts on mp3.com you will probably have already heard the name of Sloppy Meateaters, as, after The Offspring and The Ataris, these three guys rule those charts with some of their songs as “Fresh Air” or “Lonely Day”.

Sloppy Meateaters started playing together in July 1999 and after their record “Shamless Self Promotion” they became pretty popular among pop-punk fans, also thank to their constant touring and their participation at some dates of the Vans Warped Tour.

And now, this trio ( formed by Josh, Kevin and John) is finally releasing a new record called “Forbidden Meat”, named indirectly by Fat Mike of NOFX while Sloppy Meateaters were playing at the Warped Tour in Texas with them and they got stuck playing on the side stage while NOFX were playing on the main stage; so during their set, Fat Mike said “Everyone go check out Forbidden
Meat. I Mean Sloppy Meateaters”, and the band thought it was funny how he called the band Forbidden Meat - so they named the album after it! Also, this new record is the first one produced by the band with the help of a record label, Orange Peal Records, that gave the band a decent budget to record this CD ( and it shows it!).

Talking about the most important thing, the music, Sloppy Meateaters play incredibly catchy, bouncy and tuneful pop punk rock, with a lot of power, melody, blazing and great vocals and choruses and the record is blessed with some really clever lyrics: they are not just fun as in “Fat Chicks”, that goes like “I sit on my stool looking hip and cool, the radio’s blasting Blink182, I wish I could be on TRL, I wish I didn’t have to front the shelves” or in “Talking ‘Bout Jesus”, but they have also serious teenage issues as in “Suddenly Forget” or in “Play the Game”, with such lines as “You give nothing yet in return you get it all, I give my life to you that’s how we play the game”.

“Forbidden Meat” is so energetic and enthusiastic at the same time, and among the 15 tracks there are both fast songs as slower ones, and it never gets me bored. This is probably my favourite record right now, I don’t know how anyone could resist their charm; the record will hit the stores June 5th but wise people should get it before anyone at the band’s site, because if you don’t know these three dudes you are missing out great time…

“Destroy The New Rock” is Big In Japan’s debut record. Made of former
members Zoinks, Screeching Weasel, and The Gain, you can already tell these
guys have some good experience. A cross hybrid of Elvis Costello and new
wave pop-punk, these guys are unique. I have to mention one fact: Did anyone
watch the old show “Silver Spoons”? I did, I loved that show. Hard to
believe but true, but Freddie from the show is the drummer of this band! I
kept on thinking of the show when I listened to this, and maybe the same will
happen for you.

The first track, “Dig That Stupid Sound” is most likely the catchiest song on
here. This song is so catchy, that I have had it in my head for about 2
weeks straight (hey no complaints though). Lyrics like “Dig That, Dig That
Sound” have lived with me for some time.
Big In Japan makes excellent use of “ohhhh” and “ahhhh” backing vocals in
many songs and its quite pleasurable to listen to. Track two, “New Dead
Boyfriend” is quite odd, yet still a good song. The song is pure pop punk,
(almost cutesy to a point) and in the main chorus the lines are said, “I
wanna kill your new boyfriend”. Its really weird because when these lyrics
are sung the “ohhhhs” and “ahhhhs” are backing it up. It makes violence seem
“cute” to a certain extent, which is very odd.

Other good songs like “She’s Awake”, “Hell Before Reno” and “You Kiss Me
Good” are after the first and second tracks respectably. The other song
worth nothing is “Spit and Spite” which is once again, a great, fun lovin’,
catchy song, with some great guitar hooks that add so much to the song as a
whole.

This c.d. isn’t without its flaws however. All songs after “Spit and Spite”
aren’t good at all. I think though that this band has huge potential, please
do not get me wrong. The songs that I have mentioned that are good are
absolutely excellent. This is only Big In Japan’s debut, so theres plenty of
room for improvement. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on new
material from these guys. Hopefully the next release by these guys will be
better.