Fresh pop punk sounds
Motion City Soundtrack has been a fundamental part of many during their teen years. Even though they might be on hiatus, singer Justin Courtney Pierre is still releasing music here and there. His newest album, The Price of Salt, dropped this month and the singer showed his fans again how much they missed Pierre and Motion City Soundtrack. Even though the EP has only five songs included and the whole thing is rather short with a runtime of 13 minutes, it offers some real potential.
The first song, “Firehawk,” starts with a spiraling guitar sound and Pierre’s melodic vocals. As the song progresses, the listener is treated to some harder hitting guitar shreds that give the song a bigger punk vibe. Let’s dare to say, the songs on this album remind one of earlier Fall Out Boy, when they were still pop punk. This EP is probably not part of the recent pop-punk revival by young artists, but is definitely a good listen for the pop-punk veterans of the audience. It’s mature but still youthful enough to be fun.
“The Hunter” could be a track played on various radio stations. It’s a typical rock song with loud guitars and fast drums. When Pierre expresses his feelings of second guessing, it seems pretty relatable. “Oxygen Tank” lies more on the pop side of the rock-spectrum. It features some interesting indie-elements too, so it’s a great combination of multiple genres. The fading out with the chaotic scratching sound is a nice touch to the rather tame song.
“Get Out Of The Woods” features classic pop punk elements again; it could be a Front Bottoms song. But the line “Get out of the woods, God damn it” are pretty good to sing a long to and will probably be stuck in your head for a while after listening to the EP. The Price of Salt ends with “At Least It’s Over,” something fans won’t be saying after listening to this album. The bass plus the vocals take back the listener to a time in the early 2000’s when pop-punk was fresh and all about missing your ex, but not really because they were awful.
The Price of Salt is a solid yet short EP. It features some nice throwback elements that will be greatly appreciated by older pop-punk generations, which is probably the target audience anyway.
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