Goodbye Jersey

Entertain Me

Written by: PP on 13/07/2011 04:24:04

Hamburg, Germany based Goodbye Jersey are an interesting band in the European punk circuit in that they sound a little like a dozen or so infamous bands in the genre, but not exactly like any of them. The best way to describe their new album, "Entertain Me", is to use a classic cliché: place all the bands I'm going to mention in this review into a blender, plug it in, and enjoy the smoothie of punk/ska/hardcore that comes out for what it's worth. That would be a reasonably good - but not great - reminder of why you fell in love with their influences in the first place.

Throughout "Entertain Me" the band mixes together bands as diverse as NOFX, Rancid, Blink 182, Sum 41, Less Than Jake and many other household names underneath the giant umbrella term 'punk'. You'll hear songs which sound unmistakably like the silly ska/reggae songs like "Together On The Sand" by NOFX, some which carry sublime bass lines and the laid back atmosphere of modern Rancid, a few tracks featuring high school pop punk with heavy riffs like Sum 41 ("14 Years" in particular), a number of straight forward punk/pop riffs referencing the older Blink 182 material, and of course the horns and the skacore feel of older Less Than Jake material. For our local readers, I might throw in a name like Stars Burn Stripes given the intensity of a few guitar riffs and the random placement of trumpet on a couple of tracks.

The one name that will keep popping up song after song, however, is NOFX, or more precisely, their mid to late 90s output before they turned all skate punk on their fans. That's not a bad thing to do when the reviewer in question considers the band among his all time favorites, alas some bias is definitely found in this review, especially in the next sentence, where I'm going to mention that Goodbye Jersey are fuckin' excellent on about five or six tracks out of the 15 on total. Here we go: Goodbye Jersey are great on about one-third of the album. But as with almost any album that's 15 songs long, it starts feeling a little drawn out by the end. Moreover, aside from the five or six tracks that'll make Goodbye Jersey a new favorite for anyone into the bands mentioned in this review, the remaining material fails to impress as much. In fact, it feels a little weak, especially once we get to the double digits (with the exception of "Radio Sux"). You can also argue that the maxed out levels in the guitar mixing is a negative as it, in a way, forces the music into your ears instead of sliding in enjoyably. But as long as you like punk, and especially mainstream punk, "Entertain Me" should mostly do what it's title suggests, and occasionally a little more.

7

Download: 14 Years, Backbite, Radio Sux, Doin' Fine, Here We Go
For the fans of: NOFX, Rancid, Sum 41, Blink 182
Listen: Myspace

Release date 20.06.2011
Long Beach Records

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