Joining the ever-expanding ranks of bands with an ironically appropriate name are Textbook, whose first album Boxing Day Massacre ticks all the classic (read as “pre-Blink-182″) pop-punk boxes without capturing any of the form’s magic.
Lack of experience isn’t a valid excuse. Textbook are a partial reincarnation of Woolworthy, who’ve been touring around for long enough to know how it’s done. And as far as the music on Boxing Day Massacre is concerned, they do know what they’re doing; simple pop melodies and chord sequences played on amped up guitars, clear heart-felt vocals… think of early Sugar, and you’ve got an idea of the shape.
What’s entirely absent from Boxing Day Massacre, however, is the fire that Bob Mould and his contemporaries brought to their music: that sense of personality shouldering past the lyrics and looking you square in the eye, every line pregnant with meaning and nuance. Textbook can tell you stories, sure, but they’re a little bit too ordinary, too much like stuff that has actually happened to you compared to the best- or worst-case-scenarios that haunt your subconscious.
That said, Textbook’s songs are way more genuine and enjoyable than the histrionics of the haircut bands. This is pre-MySpace pop-punk, music-focused and image-light, just like we used to trade around on C90 cassettes back in the early nineties… but always falling a little short of its promise. Listen to the bridge vocal for “The Weight Of Everything” - it sounds like it should roar out ragged like the last shout of a jilted lover with nothing left to lose, but frontman Dave Lysian isn’t engaged enough with the song to pull it off, and it shows.
It’s those little details like that which separate albums like Boxing Day Massacre from the classics-to-be, and it’s all the more disappointing when you can hear the potential for more lurking beneath the surface. Tales of the everyday can still transcend, but Textbook just aren’t quite punching their weight, especially on the more deliberately poppy material. We’re two-thirds through before we reach “Called My Bluff”, a track whose arresting guitar hook and urgent structure showcases everything a Textbook album could be.
And it’s not that I’m ragging on pop-punk songs about small-town loves and hates, because Textbook’s label-mates Bedford Falls did exactly that on Savings & Loan, and that record leaps out of your speakers and into your heart in exactly the way Boxing Day Massacre doesn’t. I can believe Textbook have a great album in them, but this just isn’t it.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: alternative, Boxing Day Massacre, melodic, pop-punk, punk, Textbook
