It’s really hard to come across an unsigned Pop Punk band that has an original sound and isn’t trying to rip off The Wonder Years in one way or another. I randomly came across a great unsigned band from Chicago, IL called Real Friends. After one listen through, I bought their latest EP Everyone That Dragged You Here (2012) off their Bandcamp and haven’t stopped listening since.
This 5-piece Pop Punk outfit from the suburbs of Chicago is by no means reinventing the wheel when it comes to Pop Punk music. However, Real Friends is definitely pushing it forward the best they can with Everyone That Dragged You Here. The 5 song EP running just under 15 minutes is packed with high-pitched vocals, well thought out guitar riffs, melodic leads, and a booming rhythm section with a natural but tight production quality - and damn is all of it catchy.
The opening track Floorboards is by far the most powerful on the release and opens the EP with a bang. With a catchy chorus about lost love, a second verse that will have Pop Punk kids pitting everywhere, and an epic bridge that surely calls for pile-ons and sing-alongs, this is a hit. Floorboards demonstrates that these dudes know how to write catchy, well-written tunes and have a bright future ahead of them.
The next two tracks on the EP, Anchor Down, and Keep It Together tend to blend together and act as filler, with typical lyrics about hometowns and sluts at parties like, "You’re the type of girl that lets this whole town know when your lips come anywhere near a bottle". Themes such as this have grown stale in Pop Punk music in my personal opinion. These two songs definitely knock some originality points off for Real Friends, but are still well written and have their catchy parts.
The final two songs about what seems to be someone going away to college revamp the EP and give it the closing kick it needs. Everything I Never Want To Be has an infectiously catchy chorus that demonstrates singer Dan Lambton’s unique vocal style, which in my opinion carries this EP to the next level. In a time when a lot of pop-punk bands are going for a harsher vocal style it is refreshing to hear a classic whiny, high-pitched vocalist who knows his trade.
Home For Fall, the final track, is a perfect song to close out this EP. With another seemingly effortless catchy chorus, and well thought out lines like, “Whenever you’re missing home, just look at your arm, you’ve got the state lines inked into your forearm”, this song has all the ingredients to become a Pop Punk anthem. The very last part of this song proves yet again that these guys know how to craft together a song. After four bars of just guitar and vocals, the drums kick in with a perfectly fitting tom beat behind the line “We could listen to American Football and talk about high school, just like we did the years before”, a combination that is bound to send chills down the listener’s spine.
All in all, Real Friends have produced a solid release with Everything That Dragged You Here, proving that they are a talented up and coming band that only has good things to look forward to in this scene. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a label picked up these dudes in the near future. Go buy their album off Bandcamp. Support Punk Rock.
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Written by Andrew Eichinger
