Dead Pop Club - Home Rage

I think there's a reason that Home Rage is just an anagram for hemorage...or for the exercise shake Hemo Rage...it's one of the two. The reason isn't something weird and negative, though, because it's definitely something completely positive. Maybe like, if you don't like this album, some kind of punk-alternative hooligan hits you with a club and you get hemorage. Is that even how hemorages work? Or maybe like, the album is so good, and powerful that it GIVES you a hemorage...but maybe like a rock and roll hemorage; so it's all good in the hood.

Home Rage (or Hemorage) is a full length released by French punk experts Dead Pop Club (don't worry, noobs, they sing in english). I don't really know what it takes to be considered a qualified expert as far as punk music goes, or I guess just alternative or indie music in general, but I'm pretty sure these guys have all aced their exams. I mean, they share a member with the more recent group Maladroit, and everyone who reads this blog knows by now that Maladroit is the shit. Dead Pop Club, however, aren't so much a pop-punk band like the rest of the french bands we've reviewed have been. While a times their style is pretty similar to Teenage Bottlerocket, it also reminds me a lot of shit like Smoking Popes and Samiam. The style pretty much spans across quite a few significant punk subgenres, and touches on pop-punk, indie, post-hardcore, and just in general alternative. They're like a harder version of some of the greater indie punk bands, and a less poppy version of all the greater pop punk groups. They're like the little bear in the story about Goldilocks...they're "just right".

The first song on the album "Right At Your Door" exhibits all of these attributes perfectly while seemlessly crossing genres and influences; with vocals similar to pop-punk outfits like The Copyrights, Teenage Bottlerocket, and Descendents, and the instrumentals being more akin to the Pixies, Foo Fighters, and other indie/hard rock groups. They can do this, and then go into a song that sounds like a perfect Descendents/Ergs style ballad with more of a Street Dogs feel to the vocals, like the song "So You Think You Can Dance". You can pretty much select any song on this album and satisfy a lot of whatever you're craving at the time...unless for some reason you're craving ska or something. Then you can just go listen to something else...and I'm not really sure why you even expected to find that stuff here.

The song "Super Loser" serves as either an awesome song about how we all feel, or it serves as a one-upper to the Beck song about being a loser, because nobody gives a fuck anymore unless you're a super loser now, because new lows have been reached. I mean, new highs as far as the raised bar with excellent punk music, and such. There's like synth in this song...weird. It's alright, and gives the song more of an arena rock band feel. I can see it as being a cool addition, while not being in any way necessary, ha. Get outta my way, I'm a super loser.

The song "Shut the Fuck Up and Sing" covers more of this area between experimental rock and post-hardcore, and covers it pretty well. I mean, there's very little room to breathe here, and I didn't know this nook even existed, but it's one of those things that you're happy to have discovered, and it bodes well. The song after this is named "Freaks and Geeks" after the Judd Apatow show by the same title, and serves as an homage to his work, and the work of Silent Bob (Smith, ya'll) and John Hughes. The greatest fucking filmmakers of all time. Seriously. I've seen every movie by all of them, even though I was only recently forced by the bear into seeing Weird Science by Hughes. And guess what! It was awesome. Those films always have this concept where the loser/less-attractive guy gets the hot/sensitive girl in the end, and that's what it's like in real life, too. Well, hopefully. It works out for me like that...but I'm lucky. There can never be enough songs dedicated to those films, dudes.

This album has this whole 90s feel throughout, and ends with the six minute song "Priority Seating", which executes the fuck out of the aforementioned 90s feel. There's this whole nostaligic feel this all of this, despite it all being new. That has to be a rarely accomplished feat, and Dead Pop Club nails it. You should definitely check Home Rage out, and probably even buy it. I know people aren't into buying shit anymore, and I know people like me are too broke to afford it. But it's definitely worth it if you're good for it.

-Idle