Here we have some quirky and lighthearted pop punk out of Hawaii. It’s a friendly kind of rockin’ with just enough weird themes to make it appropriate for Halloween time. Musically, if the likes of MXPX were a little too rough and jarring for you in the ’90s, this should be about your speed. But who am I to hate on these dudes playing fun music in paradise?
Novelty Christmas album from Hawaiian-based pop punk band EL SANCHO. Six songs of RAMONES-core pop punk filled with repetitive sing-songy vocals and catchy guitar leads. Pretty entertaining as far as novelty Christmas songs go. “Merry Christmas Joey Ramone” had me coming back for a few extra listens.
Three songs of mid-tempo melodic punk. I believe that everyone contributes vocals here as there is an obvious distinction between the vocalist on the first two songs, the vocalist on the third song, and the backing vocals. All in all, this is catchy enough; the main issue I have with this release is that it is a lathe-cut 7″. While I appreciate the fact that you’re going ahead with committing to put these songs to a physical format, I’ll never understand the lathe-cut gimmick. For the most part they’re expensive to produce, most times they are limited to only a handful of copies, and they don’t sound that great. I’m just nitpicking here at this point. Anyhow, this is limited to 25 copies, so I’d suggest trying to get one quickly if that interests you.
A trio of punk veterans end up on Hawaii’s Big Island, help carve out a wee scene there, and produce this debut eight-track effort. All self-recorded, mixed, mastered, and released. It’s speedy, poppy basic punk, Á la DESCENDENTS and CRIMPSHINE, with lots of politics (and some zombies) in the lyrical mix. Catchy and infectious for sure.
