New Found Glory
New Found Glory
Drive-Thru
Coral Springs’ New Found Glory is easily one of the strongest outfits to be belched out of the quiet South Florida music scene. This, their 12-song self-titled album, contains a strange juxtaposition between casing and contents that is, to say the least, a bit disconcerting. Britney Spears’ name is blatantly plastered on both the front and back covers, and the insert features warm and fuzzy, Seventeen Magazine-esque individual glamour shots of the airbrushed quintet. Without hearing them, it would seem that these guys ache to be singing an empty N’Sync orchestration while surrounded by screaming ten-year-old girls, and that this album is nothing more than a desperate cry for help. But hark, their music is worth the reservation of judgement.
All alleviation of a spattered image comes by pressing the play button. With that, New Found Glory shows what they’re really made of • that is, a loud stream of continuous energy with catchy hooks, quick stops, and relentlessly restless vocals that go far beyond breaking a sweat. The band’s music is a healthy combination of the Get Up Kids’ style of crunchier emo and the pop-punkyness, in-your-faceness, and punchy basslines of Green Day. Loud and straightforward, New Found Glory kicks out love songs with a fresh breath, and where they lack in clever lyrics they make up in presentation. This group doesn’t stop to take a breath and, with the exception of a few slower, weak and less exciting tunes, vocalist Jordan Pundik’s typical nasally nice-guy emo voice is always animated and right on tune. Their stamina and layering of rock n’ roll guitar licks over a healthy level of distortion keep these guys undiluted from the first minute to the last • and there’s no way they learned that from Britney.
Drive-Thru Records, PO Box 55234, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413, http://www.newfoundglory.com
