“How do you like your pop-punk? Melodic, full of hooks, and sometimes light hearted? Do you wax nostalgic of the days when bands like Weston and Fenix TX were churning out songs?” proclaims the press material. Well, since you ask: not like this; within reason; and fuck no.
Apparently Only On Weekends are from South Jersey (as in New Jersey, not the island off the south coast of England), but like to pretend to be from Philadelphia. Now I’ve never been to Philly, but I’m fairly certain that if you were rocking this shit, you’d be laughed out of town before being on the receiving end of a sound fucking kicking for your temerity. Another Wasted Night rather than being a much needed, bruising Blood for Blood tribute is actually the bucket of wet slop that serves to follow up the band’s 2014 EP, Light Years and Heavy Lifting.
To me, this perfectly summarises exactly everything that was wrong with the early 2000s pop punk scene. Loads of fake-ass bands with no values existing only with the purpose of getting popular and touching up teenage girls on the Vans Warped Tour. You know the type: your Home Growns, your Allisters, your Mests and so on. Ploddingly, mind numbingly generic enough to appeal to the masses.
To sum up exactly how bad this is, note that I make it a point to listen to everything I review – without exception – from start to finish an absolute minimum of twice. Even if I hate it. This… now this I had to turn off by the time I hit track 7, as it’s so gut-wrenchingly, bollock retractingly awful. If Bowling for Soups’ Girl All The Bad Guys Want is your level, then motherfucker, this be your shit right here. Tony of Nurgle rating: 0/10.
If you can bear it, you can listen to all the tracks from this (which was released on the 24th August) on the bandcamp player below:
You can order a physical copy and merch from their webstore