Reviews

Pink Lemonade

Frank Dux Product of Our Youth CD

Cambridge, Ontario’s FRANK DUX comes swinging with their debut full-length, Product of Our Youth. Named after the guy from Bloodsport, this four-piece has been at it since 2015, cranking out slick, fast-paced melodic pop punk with a singer who can actually sing. Despite their deceptively youthful sound, most of the themes in their lyrics are all grown-up, tackling grief, loss, and the uselessness of “thoughts and prayers.” If you’re nostalgic for that ’90s-era STRUNG OUT or LAGWAGON and love those emo-boy singers from bands like TAKING BACK SUNDAY or SAVES THE DAY, you’ll want to give this a spin.

Hellbent Dead Off the Floor EP

Playing more polished, professional-sounding hardcore and having music videos and shit can be tricky business, as it makes me just want to dismiss a band as wanting to open for TERROR and/or MUNICIPAL WASTE or get a writeup in No Echo or wherever—is “blogcore” a genre (or aspiration) descriptor at this point? That said, I like HELLBENT. They play hardcore that is indeed polished, and half of these songs indeed have music videos, but they’re ultimately saved and then some by an abrasion in the guitar sound, higher-pitched vocals that are adequately heavy, and interesting songs that aren’t monotonous—fueled in large part by the less-conventional drumwork—and admittedly funny lyrics about shit like king penguins. I believe this four-song EP contains all previously-released songs.