I've always been a little squeamish about the term "Pop Punk." For me, it always conjures images of some corporate, radio friendly thing that borrows some of the sounds of punk music but is really just a mass market imitation. I'm wrong about that in many cases, of course. There are a whole slew of bands who produce intelligent, hook-filled punk music while espousing a DIY ethic. Take New Brunswick via Keansburg trio brick mower, for instance.
Teenage Graceland, the follow-up to 2012's My Hateable Face, is a collection of classic indie-influenced punk that definitely deserves the "Pop" modifier. "Georgia Glass" opens the record with a slightly off-kilter guitar riff that I love and is one of the catchiest laments about untapped potential ("Wanted to walk / decided to crawl") you're likely to hear. On "Ketamine Smile," Eric Truchan's guitar and the song's refrain of, "Let's cover ourselves in rust here and sit inside and rot" combine to capture that slacker-y aesthetic common to a lot classic indie. Similarly, songs like "Starve For The Weekend (Mabel)" and "Can't Take It With You" combine a shout along lyrical style with kind of a Malkmus / Martsch / Brock vibe to come up with something you could call... ...pop indie punk... punk indie pop... ...I don't know.
It's silly and limiting to try and jam a band into a made up micro-genre, so let's just say that the sum of Teenage Graceland's parts is something that I can see myself listening to over and over again. In addition to Truchan's lyrics and left-of-center guitar style, those parts include a rhythm section of Kristin Gogan (bass) and Steve Gennarelli (drums) that drives songs like "Anne, So It Goes" deep into your core, pushing that internal button that gets you involuntarily moving in time to the music.
That's what "Pop" is about, I guess -- giving you something you can grab onto. Our corporate overlords do that by carefully focus grouping and market researching those sounds, beats, phrases, or whatever that get their songs to stick in your brain. Bands like brick mower give you the all-natural version. They give you some honest, intelligent lyrics; add some sounds that they obviously love; and stitch it all together with some punk energy to make a real connection.
Teenage Graceland is out now on Don Giovanni Records.
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