Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!

Something For Nothing

Written by: PP on 29/12/2010 17:53:26

Take the metalcore-pop punk combination of A Day To Remember, paste some Motion City Soundtrack-esque joyous keyboards on top, and splice it with songwriting in the vein of Four Year Strong, Me Vs Hero and such bands. The result? Usually something corny and really scene pop punk from overseas, but here we have a European outfit (admittedly with a semi-retarded name) strongly inspired by those three bands doing it better than most bands in the pop-hardcore genre. Introducing: Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! from Paris, France, whose debut album "Something For Nothing" is absolutely something any ADTR fan should be checking out.

The first song "Born For Adversity" at first gives the wrong impression by featuring plenty of melodic screaming and generic breakdowns straight outta ADTR playbook. It's a fun song, but the rest of the record is so much better precisely because the screams are kept at a bare minimum. Instead, it relies on an infectiously catchy clean vocal delivery that makes no distinction between verses and choruses - everything just sticks. "In Friends We Trust", for instance, has a melody that contests any that ADTR has written to date, and the songs that follow give Four Year Strong, Me Vs Hero and the likes a proper run for their money. "Positiv-O" lifts its keyboards directly from Motion City Soundtracks "Commit This To Memory", but that's where the parallel stops because of a crunchy, metalcore-esque sound in the grating guitars and the pop-hardcore cleans that are the centerpiece of each song on the album.

Later on, the band floors the pedal, resulting in a high-octane pop hardcore closely resembling the technical pop punk of Title Fight, or alternatively, drops the pace to a near stand-still in order to fire up some punishing, very generic-sounding one chord breakdowns. These are used so shamelessly and without regard to whether it's trendy or not though so they actually fit the songs nicely, and give much-needed variation from the otherwise overtly happy sound. What's important to remember is that while originality is an alien planet for Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!, they wear their influences proudly on their sleeves, which results in a fresh, instantly lovable sound. You don't mind so much that they sound precisely like ADTR or Me Vs Hero/Four Year Strong/etc, because they execute the hybrid sound so well. Much better than I've heard anyone else in Europe do, anyway.

8

Download: In Friends We Trust, Positiv-O, Time's Up
For the fans of: A Day To Remember, Me Vs Hero, Title Fight, Four Year Strong
Listen: Myspace

Release date 01.11.2010
The Artery Foundation / inVogue Records

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.