Album Review: The Copyrights “Alone in a Dome”
review by Ricky Frankel
Album: Alone In A Dome
Band: The Copyrights
Label: Fat Wreck Chords
Score: 9/10
It’s been seven years since pop punkers, The Copyrights released their last full-length, Report through Red Scare Industries. After such a long wait, the band is back with their new album, Alone In A Dome. And just like so many other punk bands like The Bombpops, Teenage Bottlerocket, MakeWar, Direct Hit!, and Masked Intruder, The Copyrights have made that famous “Red Scare Industries to Fat Wreck Chords” jump. Granted, they did release the No Knocks 7-inch via Fat Wreck Chords to accompany Report, but as of August it’s official — The Copyrights are on Fat and as of October 22nd fans finally got a new full-length from them.
Alone In A Dome sonically seems pick up where the band left off with Report, but this time you can hear how they have super-charged their sound. Songs from Report such as “Heart Of Glue” and the wonderful “The World Is Such A Drag” really showed that the band was on to something with these pop-y yet big, anthemic tunes. Tracks like these have sprung up through out the band’s catalogue, but Alone In A Dome is where you can hear that they have totally mastered this kind of song writing.
As soon as the first track “Part Of The Landscape” begins you know that Alone In A Dome is going to be different. The deep and treble-y riff in the introduction immediately foreshadows that it’s going one hell of an effort upon first listen. And it’s the first three tracks (“Part Of The Landscape,” “Halos,” and “Stuck In The Winter”) on the album that truly exemplify how awesome The Copyrights continue to be at writing anthemic pop punk tunes with amazing soaring vocals. It is specifically “Stuck In The Winter” that is a major stand-out track on this album. It’s the switch from choppy and aggressive verses that transition into the band’s signature anthemic and soaring choruses that really makes this track shine. And while the lyrics are mainly just about just getting through the brutal Midwest winters, it’s vocal melody and lines like, “Remember though/As you drudge through the salted snow/Each day gets longer now“ that gives you a deeper sense of hope and optimism. The descending guitar solo which some what resembles the vocal notes breaks up the tune just enough and adds a ton for the “grand finale-type” final chorus that acts as the outro. In my personal opinion, all of this and so much is what makes “Stuck In The Winter” one of the best pop punk songs of the year. It’s no wonder that this tune and “Halos” were chosen as the lead singles for this album.
The Copyrights managed to make Alone In A Dome a very dynamic sounding album. Each song on the LP definitely has it’s own sound within the pop punk sub-genre which is not an easy thing to accomplish. “No Dissertation” is very fast, melodic-hardcore inspired track with blaring drums and swift chord changes that slows down and transforms with added sliding guitar octaves and massive gang vocals. The track “Brush Off” has a Heart Beats Pacific-era Banner Pilot vibe and is much more straightforward. After the cleaner-sounding and intricate guitar lead in the intro, the band proceeds to just pound away at their instruments while singing at a slower pace than a good majority of the other tunes that precede it. But in typical Copyrights fashion, the choruses are insanely catchy and will no doubt have crowds easily singing along at shows.
Alone In A Dome will almost certainly be considered one of the best pop punk albums to come out this year, if not THE best. You get so much more than a few down-stroked power chords and snotty lyrics. Don’t get me wrong, those kinds of songs are always fun and absolutely have their place in the scene, but with this album the band reaches a whole different level of pop punk and song writing in general. It may have been a long wait for Alone In A Dome, but it was definitely worth it.
Track List
1 Part of the Landscape
2 Halos
3 Stuck in the Winter
4 Pretender
5 No Dissertation
6 Tell Molly
7 Before Midnight
8 No Such Thing as Grownups
9 That One Week
10 Brush Off
11 Enemies
12 On Division
Ricky Frankel is the author of the book, I’m Outta Here!: A Collection Of Interviews & Anecdotes From The Punk Scene (2014-2018), which you can find on Storenvy.
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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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