Milestones - Growing Up is Getting Old

If someone ever asked me to name the best pop punk/easycore band from Australia, I am now able to confidently answer. Milestones, all the way. Their music sounds honest and awesome and they do a great job of blending emo into their variety of pop punk. They remind me most of bands like Crucial Dudes, Latterman, and more recent stuff by The Wonder Years. I would basically say they're the brocore band of Australia...so now that just has to be one for every other continent, if not country.

I think it's important to point out the cleverness behind the album title. It can be read as a blunt statement, "growing up is getting old." Where it would just be saying something like, "long cat is long." Or it can of course mean what I expect it to actually mean, which is that growing up is strenuous and totally becoming less worth it as it continues to happen. I totally agree, guys.

The title track of the album is just an instrumental with some oohs and ahhs type vocals towards the end, leading into the real first song "Safe and Sound". It's important for me to note early on that I love every song on this release. The fact that it took me nearly half a year to take notice of it is a complete shame, but I'm here now, and it's still here...so things work out. The instrumentals are pretty much similar to the bands I've already compared them too, with their vocals being most similar to Latterman, Maladroit, and Kid Dynamite. This song is short and catchy and will probably get your sister pregnant.

"Reggie Hammond, You Have Two Days Of Freedom!" definitely has the best intro on the album, due to the incredible leads for it. The vocals hit hard for each song, and carry this strong presence throughout the entire record. These songs are infinitely sing-along-able and infinitely quotable. These are your youth anthems, Australian adolescents and dudes in your 20s. These are still your youth anthems, dudes over seas here in America, and our readers from France. Basically, these songs travel much better than Indian take out food.

What should you be doing while listening to these next few songs to actually balance out the badassness? I would like to assist you in this all too common query:

• Throw a ring into Mt. Doom.
• Battle/slay/fuck a dragon.
• Beat Halo/Cod on max difficulty, or get 100% in an RPG.
• High five every cast member from Top Gun.
• Battle/slay/fuck a supermodel.
• Eat a dingo's baby. 

That pretty much sums up how you should feel about tracks 4 through 6. Problem solved, bitch. (It should be stated that track 4 is the best of the 3, though. Well, they're all awesome anyway).

The album ends with a questionable track title. It's called "Where's My Nintendo? Let's Play Goldeneye!" but I just can't agree. That game is unplayable to me now. The awkward inverted controls, the fact that I can barely distinguish enemies from the environment surrounding them, and the fact that my friends kicked my ass at it too much growing up. I have a Nintendo 64, though, and I most often play Blitz, Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Super Smash Bros, and the Banjo series. So, replace Goldeneye in the title with either of those, and I'm game as fuck. Even though I may've just committed heresy. I have the balls to do so regardless; this music has given me said balls.

Oh yeah, about the song! It's a keeper. It's a great closing track. It stands alone as an awesome track by itself, with great lead parts, vocal melodies, and sing-along parts. But it also has the appropriately placed woah-ohs and gang vocals to make it feel like it's the end of something great, and a sign of more great to come. When their next release comes out, I don't care how many grandmas I have to punch to get a copy of it on vinyl. I'll do it. Don't test me.

-Idle

You can stream the album for free over at their bandcamp, dudes.