Broadway Calls Toxic Kids
I interviewed Broadway Calls for SFist last year and in that interview, singer/guitarist Ty Vaughan mentioned that he had been listening to "lots of Green Day" as he was prepping songs for an upcoming release which at that time, appeared to be a full length. Apparently Broadway Calls didn't feel like waiting to put out a full length and decided to hit us with six of those "heavy on the Green Day" tracks via an ep entitled Toxic Kids. Vaughan wasn't lying when he alluded to Green Day being an influence on these newer songs, but what stands out the most about this EP is the raw, grimey production which is a far cry from the band's last full-length, Good Views, Bad News. Toxic Kids, with its gritty production, falls much more in line with the bands live sound and aesthetic than the super-slick Good Views, Bad News (but that's not saying we aren't fans of that record or anything). Stand out tracks include the opener, "I'm So Ready To Be Done With My Twenties" (a sentiment I found myself thinking when I left that decade of my life behind) as well as the peppy, upbeat title track, "Toxic Kids". The band just left on a month long tour which will take them out to The Fest in Florida, so check their website (broadwaycalls.tumblr.com) for tour dates and go get your pogo on.
Pepper Stitches
One of my best friends turned me onto Pepper about seven years ago. He and I are both Sublime fans (make all the fun you want, we give no fucks) and I want to say some girl he was hanging out floated him their first full length, which we found appealing as Sublime fans. Pepper were a solid reggae/ska band, nothing more, nothing less. I ended up getting wasted with the band in Atlanta when their tour played the downstairs room of the Masquerade (I was upstairs drum teching for Unearth). Their latest release, Stitches, is five songs of catchy ska/reggae that will be huge with college kids nationwide. The highlight of the ep would definitely be "Drunk Girl", which is an homage to that all too common party occurrence known as inebriated women. "Wake Up" lends itself well to some epic pogo-ing and sees vocalist Kaleo Wassmen doing his best Brad Nowell (and doing him justice, might I add). Stitches sort of trails off as it ends (the slowish "Lonely" and acoustic version of "Mirror" don't hold up as well against the ep's earlier tracks), but overall, fans of fun, reggae, summertime, partying, and bonfires are going to be REALLY into this ep.
Wavves Life Sux
At first, I wasn't really a fan of Wavves. That first lp was brutal on my ears and I was somewhat jealous that their singer/guitarist Nathan Williams was dating Bethanny from Best Coast. I saw Wavves open for Best Coast and even that particular live show left a little to be desired. On a whim, I decided to check out the King Of The Beach record and was totally blown away. I don't know what I hadn't been hearing before, but Wavves were fucking awesome. Life Sux dropped last month and has picked up where King Of The Beach left off and then some. Wavves mastermind Nathan Williams has perfected blending beachy surf rock with noisy pop punk so much that MTV can't stop using his songs in the background of Jersey shore almost weekly. "I Wanna Be Dave Grohl", the ep's first single, is one of those anthemic songs that lends itself well to epic car singalongs and serious public transportation air drumming. Life Sux features collaborations with Best Coast and Fucked Up, the former being laden with cute, female background vocals and the latter sounding basically like a Wavves song sans collaborators, but we all know Fucked Up blows so no one should be surprised. Life Sux will be all over several "best of 2011" lists, so cop this shit now because its that good.
