Mixtapes - Castle Songs

A Short Review of Castle Songs by Mixtapes

Mixtapes put out a two-song EP type thing on Death to False Hope Records a couple days ago, and it's a pretty sweet couple of songs. I'm going to do a super quick review of it, because why not?

Mixtapes are another band from my hometown area of Cincinnati. They're a four-piece indie/pop-punk group with Ryan Rockwell on guitar/vocals and Maura Weaver on guitar/vocals as well. Ryan Rockwell was in Black Tie Bombers with Jon Lewis from The Dopamines, and was also the dude who got him into punk music while they were working at a Gamestop together. I don't know anything about Maura...she's really nice though, and her vocal parts are always my favorite in their songs. Ryan also has this cool rap group called Small Time Crooks, and they're pretty awesome too. My friend bought me one of their CDs at a show of theirs, and I listened to it on repeat for quite some time. I get so fucking offtrack in these reviews...

Castle Songs is just two short songs, and it's awesome for what it is. The first song "Cause I'm a Genius" is like some sort of ska-punk deal, and it's pretty awesome. The upstrokes took me by surprise, dude, but it was a pretty cool surprise. The song is only 32 seconds, but talks about getting pizza, so it's a great 32 seconds. The second song is a slow song about dissing everything some chick likes. It even talks about how Tim Burton sucks other than the movie Mars Attacks (which I've only seen once, very recently, when the Bear made me watch it). Also, Strung Out do kind of suck, I agree. This is a perfectly cute, spite-filled, short little song and I love it.

Go download the album here and enjoy it for a minute and a half or listen to it on repeat like I am. Laterrrrrr.

Here's what they look like:

-Idle

The Bear would like to add that Hey Baby is easily the better song on the album.