The Smalltown Rockets

Mondopop

Written by: PP on 26/05/2011 04:26:57

Germany's The Smalltown Rockets are yet another band trying to re-ignite the power pop / old school punk rock spirit in the vein of Ramones, The Clash and similar bands through a simplistic old school approach to the genre on their new album "Mondopop". And strictly in terms of melody lines and worry-free vocal lines, they are reasonably successful throughout, with nicely catchy songs like "She", "Come Back To Me" or "Lost" drawing the listener back to the days of original pop punk from the early 90s Green Day era and beyond.

The problem is, however, that despite getting the listener into a rowdy no-frills old school punk riot mood to start out with, the band's vocalist lacks charisma altogether to pull it through properly. You might humm-a-long to his easy-going vocal melodies, maybe even sing a chorus or two, but the moment you switch to another band you'll be hard-pressed to remember a single song by the band. Now, that's not because The Smalltown Rockets aren't a good band by any means, just that their vocalist completely fails at arousing any sort of emotional response whatsoever in the listener due to his painfully average and nothingsaying delivery. The mindless sing-a-longs mean nothing when you can't remember how their lead vocalist sounds like even if your life depends on it, which is a shame because with a more memorable and more powerful vocalist The Smalltown Rockets could do very well on the European punk rock circuit. For now, they just sound like a cheap copy of Ramones, Sex Pistols and the older Green Day material, and alas can be written off from the serious lineups for the foreseeable future.

5

Download: She, Lost, Come Back To Me
For the fans of: Ramones, The Clash, old Green Day
Listen: Myspace

Release date 22.04.2011
Fastball Music / Sony

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