Holy shit! Where did these guys come from? I've been on a huge kick of bands that I refer to as brocore pop punk, which is a genre name I find hard to explain/defend most of the time. It's kind of like how Brian Posehn in the bro of nerds, meaning people who listen to Latterman, Lifetime, The Wonder Years, and Four Year Strong are like the bro types of punk. It really doesn't make sense to anyone but me, but I totally mean it in a positive way. Basically, my friend Scott (he constantly fights with Willow over who is the bear, but she clearly is winning will play Call of Duty with a shuffled playlist consisting of FYS, WY, Latterman, Lifetime, Handguns, and a couple other bands which I feel fit into the brocore category. Basically, whenever we don't have these bands playing it feels like our game is off, and our kill/death ratio clearly lacks. I think we might be bros of the punk scene...fuck my life. Regardless, a new band is being added to this list, respectively, and they go by the name With The Punches.
With The Punches (WTP, or does WTP already stand for something? I feel like it does, but I'm using it anyway) is a five-piece pop punk band from New York and New Jersey. Their style is similar to the bands I listed above, as well as bands like Fireworks and Set Your Goals. They're fast, catchy, and seem to be pretty much zero bullshit. They're self managed, they work hard, and they write excellent fucking songs with great fucking leads and I'm saying fuck too much...but fuck it, they earned it.
The album kicks off with "Never Stop" and immediately you're pulled into the speed of it all. The instrumentals are fast as fuck, which is amazing with the quickly executed lead guitar parts throughout the entire song, and the rapidfire vocals pulled off perfectly. The tempo does vary throughout the album, but remains mostly on the fast side, with occasional drops in tempo when it's clearly necessary. The leads never let up, though. For each song, they're awesome and fill in the would-be spaces if only the rhythm section was used.
"No Blood, No Foul" continues with the consistently excellent lead guitar, and also has the added benefit of awesome backup vocals during a small part of the first verse that act as counter melodies rather than repetition of the lead vocals. This reminds me of shit like Charlie Brown Gets a Valentine, and I love it. This band reminds me a lot of We Are the Union when it comes to their interesting semi-breakdown parts. I'm infinitely impressed by the guitar on this album, it's composed so fucking perfectly along with the rest of the band. They come off as more of a rock band throughout some of this album. Like, I wouldn't consider the song "Dead Weight" to be pop punk or punk really. I love it, but I wouldn't fit into the genre. But I mean, the punk genre fits so much into it, that I guarantee it would hold claim to this band, anyway.
Listening to this album reminds me of the Caleb Lionheart album title "Think Hardcore, Play Pop Punk" because it pretty much covers that pretty well. Or it may be more like "Think Pop Punk, Play Hardcore" really. It's hard to say. Maybe you should make this decision yourself, I've gone on long enough. You can check the songs out on their facebook page, and you can get the album at their big cartel page. Hit it up, bros.
-Idle
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