Doug Van Pelt

Emo is my middle name

The latest issue of HM -- the March/April 2009 Issue #136 -- had to chop away and leave some missing pieces, like the "Live Report" and the newly reinstated "Classic Moments" section. Our online edition features this issue's "Classic Moments" albums, which were Living Sacrifice's Reborn album and MxPx's Life In General.


Here's my short take on the latter:





MxPx
Life In General
[ 1996 | Tooth & Nail ]
Transcending or perfecting pop punk?
MxPx had already arrived. Their Pokinatcha debut and Teenage Politics sophomore albums displayed all the youthful angst that a scene hungry for raw punk was looking for. But it was the tight playing of this trio (Yuri Ruley on drums; Mike Herrera on bass; and Tom Wisniewski on guitar) and sharp twists and turns around simple yet solid jazz-inspired riffs that brought this band to a maturity level that was world class. It was like they graduated from those banana seat bicycles in the “Punk Rawk Show” video and mounted full-blown Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Even though the be-bop/blues rock infused “Chick Magnet” is perhaps their most notorious song, this album is much more than a one-hit wonder. Anyone who’s logged time with this album can attest that it’s full of sing-along anthems, like “Cristalena,” “Move To Bremerton” and “Do Your Feet Hurt,” with its endearing opening line of, “Can I call you sweetheart?” Lyrically, “Doing Time” showed that, while they were growing older, they weren’t even close to losing touch with the passion that fueled their generation. The song “Middlename” starts off the album showing that, as songwriters and a band, they paid attention to each element of the song, the bridge, for example, where they go into something quite musical and impressive. Like the best of Christian rock’s short history, this piece of art wasn’t something naive, mediocre, or cliche. The best evidence of this might be the mainstream attention that the band was able to capture and keep with this great album.