Reviews

Monster Zero

Discomfort Creature Discomfort Creature LP

Melodic punk that kinda sounds like GREEN DAY, if they made a hard right at the fork in the road that led them down the rock opera path at the left. Cementing this opinion is the fact that the singer sounds so eerily similar to Billie Joe, both vocally and in the way some of the vocals are structured, that I had to make sure my headphones were plugged in to the right thing. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, this is a really great record. A very catchy, fun listen. Kinda like a more matured take on the pop punk sound.

Florida Men Dive Bar CD

This band is from the Netherlands, and they spell it out as plainly as possible—RAMONES-core, heavily influenced by SCREECHING WEASEL, the QUEERS, CHIXDIGGIT, TEENAGE BOTTLEROCKET, et al. Let’s be honest, by the bands I mentioned above, you already know if you want this or not. There is zero chance that you are on the fence with the FLORIDA MEN at this point. Here’s the question, though: in twenty-plus years, will FLORIDA MEN be the kind of significant band that will be mentioned as an influence and peer to the list above? The answer is “I don’t know.” The impact is for you to gauge. These twelve pop punk songs time out in just about twenty minutes. For me, the FLORIDA MEN’s Dive Bar album is undoubtedly a faultless example of what they say they are, with entirely no surprises.