REVIEW: What Happened?: This Is Our Life

Another great John Wilkes Booth Records release, this one took me totally by surprise I basically bought it because John Wilkes Booth has a pretty good track record for their releases what I got pretty much just blew me away. ‘This Is Our Life’ is an incredible pop punk EP with five great songs, more than a few of which remind me of Jawbreaker, but with more pop injected into them. These songs just get better and better as you go on, except for maybe the first track because that’s just the best one on here. If you like pop punk in the vein of Jawbreaker don’t fuck up and miss out on this one.

1. My Favorite Sound
2. Reading
3. I Trusted Andy Koufman
4. Every Jacket Is Two Jackets
5. Gamorrean Guards

REVIEW: Tiny Fighting Trees: Bath Salts

Tiny Fighting Trees is now on Hiatus but before they left they dropped this EP, and it’s quite excellent. The band released and album not long ago, it was really good but this EP is head and shoulders above it. It’s got a sound that’s a combination pop punk and 90’s punk. The first song ‘Those Skull Bong Rules Earth! Punks Are Mysterious’ isn’t even a minute long but it gets stuck in my head all the time. The second song ‘Hey, Butthole!’ is maybe the true gem of the EP, this song alone makes me really bummed that the band is calling it quits, but hopefully that’s just a ‘for now’ deal. ‘Apologies to Plow United’ there’s no mistaking where some of the band’s influences come from; they do an ace job of nailing it too. The last song ‘Puke Angel Pt. 4’ ends it a little bit weak but it’s still a pretty good song, it just doesn’t quite hit the heights of the rest of this thing. If you like the 90’s punk/pop punk check out the ‘Bath Salts’ EP, you can snag it from their bandcamp.

 

 

 

1. Those Skull Bong Rules Earth! Punks Are Mysterious
2. Hey, Butthole!
3. Apologies to Plow United
4. Puke Angel Pt. 4

Get it from Tiny Fighting Trees HERE

REVIEW: Not Yet!: It’s A Small World, Alcohol

This is Not Yet!’s first release, and it’s a pretty damn impressive one. You get pop punk in the vein of Rational Anthem, Dear Landlord and Off With Their Heads. The only bad thing I can say about this is its only four songs, way less than I want. Every one of these songs are great, they’re written well and played just as good. The man behind the band Jose, is a pretty great dude and I think it really comes through listening to these songs. I’d already rank Not Yet! up pretty high on the list of currently running pop punk bands, and as you may know that’s a tough list to get highly ranked on. You can get the CD from SP Records and if you’re a sick fuck that likes tapes John Wilkes Booth Records has them too. If you like pop punk such as the above mentioned bands then don’t sleep on Not Yet!

1. East Bay Breeze
2. Pointless
3. Cincinnati Agony
4. Westbound Sign

Get it from Not Yet! HERE

REVIEW: Spider-Man & Batman: Disordered Minds

This is a pretty rad crossover and the first Spider-Man & Batman crossover, it’s about fifty pages and not only has Batman and Spider-Man but you get two of the most insane villains too, the Joker and Carnage! Carnage and Joker make a great insane combo, they both get captured in the beginning and have chips implanted in their brains to make them docile. Carnage quickly is able to short out this chip, him and the Joker team up. However this team doesn’t last very long, soon it breaks out into a fight in Gotham. This is a pretty great crossover, overall better than most. The only semi complaint I have about it is my love/hate relationship with the art. It looks amazing on the heroes and villains but for people out of costume it just has that weird 90’s look. Anyway, that’s trivial at best. If you like Spider-Man or Batman pick up Disordered Minds and give it a read.

Get Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds from Amazon HERE

REVIEW: Defendor

Ever wanted to see Woody Harrelson play a mentally unstable man that’s also a superhero? Well Defendor is the movie for you. Arthur Poppington is a vigilante style superhero, much like Batman, but without the smarts, or the money. He’s on a search to find Captain Industry and put a stop to him. Along the way he makes an arch nemesis out of a dirty undercover cop and picks up a crack head sidekick (Kat Dennings). After stopping some crimes and being not only beaten up but shot he’s finally arrested. The movie kind of jumps back and forth most of the time as he’s telling the story to a psychiatrist. Peter Stebbings wrote and directed this, he doesn’t have much experience as a writer or director but after seeing this I’ll say he’s definitely on the right track. I enjoyed the hell out of this and highly recommend it to anyone that likes dark comedies or superhero movies.

Get Defendor from Amazon HERE