Ten Years is a CD and DVD combination retrospective covering the decade long career of Italian pop-punks Sun Eats Hours. The nineteen energetic tracks of the album are balanced by the rockumentary and live footage of the band’s day-to-day antics both at home and on the road.
Unsurprisingly, considering their career started in the late nineties, Sun Eats Hours draw on the slightly older definition of pop-punk. Less like the polished radio pop of the MySpace clones and more like the pacey rattle of the pre-Millennial West Coast skate-punx in sound, Ten Years makes up in energy what it lacks in originality.
And it really does lack originality. Skate-punk wasn’t exactly the most innovative of sounds to start with, and Sun Eats Hours have brought nothing new to the table whatsoever, with the possible exception of their nationality. But to their credit Ten Years doesn’t show them presenting themselves as anything other than a good-time pop band, and there’s an element of self-effacement at play alongside their Italian flair - “sure, we look good,” they seem to say, “but it doesn’t mean much”.
Sun Eats Hours‘ sound is reminiscent of The Offspring and Less Than Jake; simple four chord progressions, fast rattling snare lines, slightly gruff shouty vocals and simple harmonies. The band have an ear for the hooks; making simple music is easy enough, but making memorable simple music is a little more tricky, and Ten Years shows that they were up to the task right from the start. None of the nineteen tracks may be particularly innovative, but hardly any of them lack the polished zing of pop perfection.
Three months travelling in Mexico gave me a lasting fondness for non-Anglophone punk music, so I was personally a little disappointed at the lack of Italian language material; only “La Mangiauomini” gets delivered in Sun Eats Hours‘ mother tongue. The rest comes across in English no less competent than a number of native-speaking artists. the lyrics themselves, though, are about as clichéd as it gets – it’s the words on Ten Years that make it plain we’re dealing with a pop act, and the fact that they’re almost more cringeworthy when addressing serious subject matter (the am-dram lament of “September 2001”) than addressing the mundane (the schmaltz-fest of the previously-unreleased “Friends”).
But getting hung up on what Ten Years is about is to miss its true point. The clue is in the band’s name; Sun Eats Hours are the soundtrack to late-teen good times in those last long hot summers before the harsh realities of bills and employment kick in. The bright and bouncy tunes support the sense of life lived in the moment; asking questions is for tomorrow, man. So open the sunroof, wind the windows down, and head for the beach – there’s still some hours left for the sun to eat yet.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: hardcore, Italy, melodic, punk, Sun Eats Hours, Ten Years
