Hailing from Newport Beach, California, US Crush is a melting pot of new wave punk/pop/rock that follows along the lines of Blink 182 and Lit. Every song on this record is built for radio. No track clocks in over four minutes and thirty seconds. Generally speaking for all of the songs on this album, I cannot stand the punk rock attitude one minute, then the pop soft side thirty seconds later. I think it misleads the listener about what you’re getting if you buy the record. Don’t call this style diverse, because it’s really not. Put on “Bleed” and “Jimmy Crack Rock” for a supermarket sample of what I’m trying to convey.
What are the strengths of this band? Songs like “Out Of Control” and the teen angst rocker “Underground” are signs that the members of US Crush have the talent to write catchy lyrics and chords. They have buzz choruses that are appealing in unison, such as the chorus found in “You Wanna Be A Star”. The band pulls their act together with the repetition of “My generation”(repeated three times) to give the tune that sing-along punk-rock feel. Like many punk-pop acts, their themes are topics popular with teens, silly songs about teenage love, deviance, and common experiences about growing up misunderstood by their elders. That’s nothing new in the punk-pop genre.
Unfortunately, I had more complaining to do with this debut record than I did bragging. My main problem is what I stated early, that the band comes across as punk but turns the songs into pop-rock. The other disturbance is that I had a hard time remembering which tracks were which because all of the songs have the same tuning and really don’t say much for the band overall. I had to choke this album down.
+ larry sarzniak
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