Album Review: The Bombpops “Deer Beer” EP
review by Chris Crash
Exploding out of beautiful San Diego are The Bombpops, a great pop punk band who does their damnest to keep the energetic party spirit of Fat Wreck Chords alive and well. Last year saw the release of their first full length LP entitled Fear Of Missing Out, which was one of the most fun and bratty new releases of 2017 and will forever be mined by me for making mixtapes to bring to the halfpipe. I was very much looking forward to Dear Beer, a follow-up EP released less than a year later and just in time for the prime pop punk season of summer. While I appreciate the band’s commitment to give the fans some more rude and quirky jams as fast as possible, I definitely think that the band prematurely blew the fuse with this release.
1) Dear Beer
2) Polluted Skies
3) Turn Up The Thermostat
4) I Call Bullshit
I really don’t want you to walk away from this review thinking that The Bombpops made a crappy mini album, but I do hope that you see from my perspective how less can be more on an album given some circumstances. On Dear Beer, we get 4 songs that all skew more to the pop side of the pop punk spectrum (think more Alkaline Trio on Crimson than Alkaline Trio on Goddamnit), and while that’s certainly not a bad thing, the fairly similar sounds across all 4 songs make the weaker ones stand out more. Listening to the first track (the title song Dear Beer) was an incredibly enjoyable experience that gave me something singular to love after each repeated listen…the great rollicking bassline at the beginning, the vocal harmonies of dual singers Jen and Poli over some exciting guitar chords, the self-effacing lyrics about the relatable topic of not being a fuck-up to your friends. It’s a real winner of a song, and one that is surely going to stick with me.
However, the latter half of this EP sees the same pop punk formula used again and again without much variation and with no strong characteristics to act as a safety net. I Call Bullshit is built up of moments that are almost the inverse of what made the title track so great…aimless guitar power chords with no real melody, weak cutsey harmonizing that we’ve heard done better elsewhere, lyrics with the depth of a vague drama-filled Facebook post that is usually accompanied by the picture of a Minion looking at you condescendingly. While it’s interesting to compare two very similar and simple kinds of songs and realizing that there are more subtle elements that makes the better one great, the half baked songs on the latter half makes the overall listening experience a bit of a slog at the end.
The more that I think about it, the more that I am convinced that Dear Beer could have been an incredible 7” single. With the title track as the A side and the great second track (Polluted Skies…a song that paints a picture of the hellish city landscape that they are somehow feeling at home with) as the B side, this could have been a short but sweet statement showing how The Bombpops go to work as pop punk wizards. Stretching this release out with two additional weaker songs puts a damper on this album as a whole, but not enough to convince me that this band has run out of magic.
About the Author
Denise Borders 39, Los Angeles. Denise founded PWV in 2008 and remains the primary manager and photographer/videographer. She is not secretly obsessed with Joey Cape.
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