Pop punk has always been one of those genres that gets me all nervous and on edge, qualifiers needed from the get-go, "you know, like this but not like that", etc. Trying to have a conversation about ska with someone that knows nothing about you (or your record collection) is pretty much the same corner that you can only let yourself get backed into when you're at your most comfortable.
And so that being said, the circumstances that allow me to really enjoy pop punk are obviously quite specific. Dillinger Four's "Vs God", Discount's "Half Fiction" (and if you could even count it, "Crash Diagnostic"), Bouncing Souls' "Maniacal Laughter", the right Fifteen or Jawbreaker record, the first Alkaline Trio LP or any of what The Broadways did, all of which point towards a specific era and vibe - I believe. etc etc etc.
So maybe this is what draws me to this 7" so much, the fact that Four Eyes' "Towards The End Of Cosmic Loneliness": It's poppy without being slick, more concerned with conveying a bit of legitimate thought and emotion without also delivering crisp octave chords, awfully polished harmonies at the chorus. Blessed with an overall quality that is rough and raw, but without being culled from the practice tapes that the drummer's cat pee'd on at some point and were captured on the little boombox with one speaker and the Lagwagon sticker on it. In all actuality, while Dinosaur Jr comparisons have been tossed around a lot: I hear more of a straight forward version of early Archers of Loaf, or perhaps for the sake of being more modern, Meneguar.
Opening with "Back to Life", a great, driving, two minute memory lane that brings me to mid/late 90's shows in central NJ... followed by"Pilgrim", a sleeper-hit that keeps the head-nodding at bay until the 37 second mark when the riffing starts and the pace truly kicks into gear. Absolutely my favorite of the four tracks, the one that ends up on every hypothetical mix-tape.
"Carol Stream" is an overblown (and surely unintentional homage to) Braid, half of the concern with sounding smooth and at double-time. "SOS" closes quite deceptively: remarkably slower than the other tracks, I felt like it was almost adhering to the details of some forgotten formula: "end it with an instrumental slow jam". Sarcasm aside, though without examples coming to mind, it's a sequences that I feel accustomed to - albeit, possibly with false memories or my own personal recollections clouding over the facts. ...all of that being said, the guitars carry this one, and despite the addictive vocal melodies sliding in halfway through, the general vibe - it follows this mysterious nonsense mandate that I am trying to conjure and apply.
This is the debut release on Brooklyn's Puzzle Pieces Records, who offer the single as a free download: http://www.mediafire.com/?r1ksec1v2t0b19k That being said, it's available to purchase directly after you listen to it, and love it, here: http://puzzlepiecesrecords.wordpress.com/
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