Same goes with Banner Pilot. I'd freely admit that they're working from a seemingly limited template here ﾖ buzzsaw guitars with plenty of muting going on, uptempo from start to stop, two-minute long heart-punches, some of the best, gravel-throated vocals this side of Lawrence Arms and/or Monikers or Jawbreaker.

With a pedigree that features ex-members of Off With Their Heads and the vastly underrated Rivethead, these dudes are not straying far from what they've been doing for years ﾖ making the words "pop punk" a respectable genre again. The tunefulness of the music, coupled with the raggedness of the vocals (and the fact that the lyrics are consistently melancholic, wickedly laced with metaphor and all-around awesome) totally compliment each other ﾖ one of those instances where, as a listener, I feel a little bit beat down and heartbroken and simultaneously a little bit rejuvenated every time I hear it.

So Banner Pilot hasn't reinvented the wheel here. And if the template they're working from is a limited one, that's okay ﾖ because the end result is still top-notch. The music is still relentlessly catchy, the fervor is still entirely present and discernable and the album as a whole absolutely rips.

File somewhere between the Copyrights, Madison Bloodbath and Ringers. One of the best albums to come out this year.

-Keith Rosson