From veterans blink-182 and Green Day, to the recent burst of young bands in the genre like Set Your Goals, The Story So Far, and Second To Last, California has always been notorious for pumping out solid Pop-Punk bands throughout the years. San Jose's own Stickup Kid will soon be joining the aforementioned bands in the ranks of great Californian bands with their latest EP Nothing About Me. Scheduled for a June 5th release on Adeline Records, Nothing About Me is a huge step up and a solid effort from a young Stickup Kid who seem to have found a comfortable sound within the genre.
Breathing kicks off the EP with a blast beat, which contributes to the aggressive style that Stickup Kid have grown into with Nothing About Me. The short track cuts into a breakdown beat thirty seconds in, featuring guitars reminiscent of Title Fight and emotional vocals breathlessly chanting "I’m stuck inside my head, I’m buried in my room". This short song ends abruptly but strongly, and leads into the next song with perfection.
Lighthouse continues to push the EP forward with a great guitar riff leading into a Punk beat behind vocals, which sound eerily similar to mix of Tyson Ritter from The All American Rejects and Billie Joe from Green Day. The tune quickly slows pace leading into an amazing latter portion. Building off of a soothing clean guitar part, the rhythm section builds the song back up strongly behind another great vocal line with, "This time I won't take back a single word I said. You will not ruin me again". The song comes crashing down at the end with a great breakdown to close the strongest track on the album. Lighthouse shows that Stickup Kid have stepped up their game in terms of songwriting on Nothing About Me.
Stickup Kid proves to have found a consistency in their sound on the next three tracks. Dreaming Of Kenny Rogers, You Are Captain Hook, and The Weather Outside Is Weather stay on track with the rest of the EP, but still differ enough from each other to create excitement and keep listeners out of boredom.
The majority of the EP seems to be about an ex-girlfriend or friend, which is a fairly typical subject within this genre, but Stickup Kid present it with well thought out and relatable lyrics and unique melodies. Besides overusing the Title Fight bend a little too much, the instrumentation and songwriting on this release is top notch and Stickup Kid have really seemed to found a sound of their own. Go buy Nothing About Me by Stickup Kid on June 5th.
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Written by Andrew Eichinger
