Direct Hit!

Domesplitter

Written by: PP on 22/07/2011 21:45:06

Direct Hit! have been slowly but surely building their fan base as a part of the booming market for no-frills pop punk, a reactionary response by the scene and its fans to counter all the over polished Hit The Lights-esque bands that dominated the scene a couple of years back. Basically, people got tired of punk roots disappearing increasingly from pop punk, which is why you now have bands like Direct Hit!, Mixtapes, The Wonder Years and a ton of others bringing back the vibrant, and high-energy sound of the early 2000s scene in a big way.

"Domesplitter" is their debut album of sorts, consisting of ten tracks all selected from their first five EPs, re-imagined and re-recorded with better production and better musicianship all around. They play a similar style of melodic shout-out-loud / gang shout punk rock in the vein of bands like Off With Their Heads, but with the no-frills and fun-factor of smaller bands like The Dopamines, Banner Pilot and so forth, resulting in a ton of "1-2-3-4 let's go" shouts, rough pop punk characterized by raw melody and high energy delivery, and that sort of stuff. They even have a song - one of the best on the album - "In Orbit" which is all gang-shouts from start to finish, and yet it breathes of infectious melody and catchy sing-a-long lines from start to finish. The synths and organ guitar add a nice and bright touch to the record, making sure that despite the gruff punk rock groundwork, there's enough melody and energy on the record to appeal outside of the small niché as well.

However, if there's one criticism that can be said about "Domesplitter", it is the relative similarity of the songs to one another. Several times I wasn't sure if I was listening to their best track "Werewolf Shame" (which wasn't included on this album, sadly) or a song from this record, because they all use the same tempo and similar melody lines. That said, it's a solid melody line and I'm a sucker for good melody, so that doesn't bother me much. As it stands, "Domesplitter" is a good release in a snowballing genre, but it'd be good to see a new album with all new songs soon to keep the ball rolling.

7

Download: In Orbit, They Came For Me, Monster In The Closet
For the fans of: Off With Their Heads, Mixtapes, The Dopamines
Listen: Bandcamp

Release date 02.08.2011
Kind Of Like Records

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