Pop
punk is in its prime. With bands like Sum 41, Blink 182, SR-71,
dominating the airwaves, it's a perfect time to release a
pop punk album. American Hi-Fi realizing this has just released
the follow up to their 2001 self titled debut. Does the album
compete against other artists in the genre, or is it overshadowed
by the hordes of others who sound the same?
The
answer is a mix of both. The Art of Losing is an entertaining
punk CD, comprised mostly of average riffs and lyrics. "This
is the Sound" shows how enjoyable slower songs by pop punk
artists can be, this one sounding mostly like SR-71's masterpiece
"The Best is Yet to Come". "Save Me" successfully blends some
nice acoustical pieces followed by an adequately motivated
chorus that later on becomes much heavier. These two songs
completely outshine the rest of the CD. The rest of the songs
on the CD are very standard cookie-cutter pop punk material,
never breaking the mold set by many other artists. One of
the nicer surprises was the Local H type riff used during
the last song "Happy", but then again it becomes nothing more
then a borrowed sound from another artist, which the CD seems
to be full of.
Fans
of this pop punk genre will enjoy the CD, but will quickly
get tired of it, the same consequence suffered by other CDs
that never try to stretch the boundaries set by other artists
in the genre. After you've heard it once, you feel like you've
heard it a thousand times. Pop Punk is in its prime now, but
will it stand the test of time?
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