Rating: 
There’s a common theme in music and especially punk music where band’s that have been around for awhile will have fans who will say “their music was better when…..” and they yearn for the “the good old days.”. Enter Blossom Hill, a pop punk band from Finland who released their debut LP, Sidetracks, in October.
On Sidetracks, the group seems to have (fairly successfully whether intentional or not) melded together what sounds like two different eras of Green Day inspired music. From the get go a listener can expect vocals that sound like they are inspired by 39/Smooth or Kerplunk eras and guitar riffs that sound derived right from the Insomniac/Nimrod timeline.
This is what I hear when I listen, and is what I am going to base my critique on. To me they sound like one my favorite Green Day eras (Insomniac/Nimrod) and my least favorite (39/Smooth). Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy Sidetracks, but my feelings are very mixed. I hate to make direct comparisons to bands as they take time to create something their own but I can’t get over my first impressions of the album, and for a person who can still tell you what he was doing when he first heard Dookie in ’94, nothing will ever compare. At the same time, I can’t think of another band that has brought me back in time to a groups (so-called) glory days the way they have.
With that said, Sidetracks does not really have tracks that stand out in my mind either good or bad, and it had things I liked and things I didn’t. But if you are one of those nostalgic Green Day fans who thinks “they were better when….” check out Blossom Hill, maybe they can transport you back there.
T.J.
Junior Battles-Idle Ages-It took me a long time to catch onto this album, but when I did it was as close to a revelation as I came this year.
Cubicle is an L.A. based punk band, rocking out with near total corporate schtick; Songs of coffee, languishing in noward* mobility, and Ponzi Scheme greed abound. The sound is somewhat comical ala Guttermouth and certainly classic punk reminiscent of Circle Jerks. The later influence goes even so far as to include a very convincing cover of “Beverly Hills”
The album I have been listening to lately is one that I have been wanting to listen to for a long time, but so much music that I am interested, or have become interested has come out since its release date that it has been put on the back burner. But lately, I have been back on the hunt for new music and not finding anything of particular interest. Well about two weeks ago Rebel Time Records sent out a tweet seemingly from above about a sale that they were having. Their entire discography was put on sale for 5 dollars a cd (you can still take advantage of this deal until the new year), a price I couldn’t say no to. So I finally decided to do what I had set out to do in September 2010, and purchase a copy of Broadcast Zero’s Some Concerns Regarding This Revolt. Considering the album is over a year old and the band is no longer together, I’m not really sure if what I am about to write is a review or a revisit.
I have been a fan of mid-west pop punk for some time now, but I am still new enough that I am unfamiliar with the other bands that The Slow Death members belong to (Pretty Boy Thorson, or The Ergs for example), and maybe is that ignorance that is skewing my perception of the record. But I have heard enough to know that these guys aren’t reinventing the wheel, but what they are doing (and it comes out in the music) is making the type of music they love, and loving it all the while.
The Shell Corporation, to be confused with the Shell Corporation is what comes up when you google the band and see the link to the group’s website. A lot of times bands won’t have an accurate picture of what they really sound like, but this time I think they hit the proverbial nail on the head. I may not have said that after the first listen. After initially hearing Force Majeure (the group’s new album), I was really looking for a frame of reference and someone to compare them to. I had been listening to Holding Onto Sound’s The Tempest EP recently and I heard (imagined) so much of them in the Shell Corporation that I had to check to see if any members of the band happened to be in both groups (the answer is no). Like I said the comparisons were imagined and the only song that I could even hear what I thought I had was on “Ozymandias”, the second last track of the album. 
Boston band Burning Streets has a new release. “Sit Still” is out now on Sailor’s Grave Records and with it you get 11 tracks of emotionally charged rock and roll. On the whole, Sit Still hovers in the punk rock vein, but is heavily laced with a melancholy that accompanies other similar acts like The Loved Ones or American Steel and to a lesser degree, Dead to Me.
When you think of musical entertainment in Las Vegas, there’s a pretty good (or bad) chance that you’re conjuring up images of Beatles tributes bands, performers in drag, or heaven forbid, Celine Dion. Well, if this describes you, you can extract yourself from the turnip truck right now.