Hailing from Boston, Burp. have been building their reputation locally through a mix of ’90s pop-punk with splashes of the ’10’s emo revival. Their latest release, ‘Video Games & Cartoons’, hones in on the East Coast quartet’s broad range yet remains tightly anchored to punk and Midwest emo. Its five songs are raw, intricate and spliced with punk melodies, power-pop hooks, and the occasional grunge riff.
‘Video Games & Cartoons’ serves a well-balanced mix of nostalgia and honesty with Burp. being frank (and at times humorous). It’s a whip-sharp collection of tracks that utilises their influences (Microwave, The Front Bottoms and Hot Mulligan) and packages them to create a favourable EP.
To get an insight into what ‘Video Games & Cartoons’ is about, Burp. have penned a track-by-track guide, as well as detailing how the EP came together.
“‘Video Games & Cartoons’ is an EP that came together immediately after the mixing process of our last record, ‘Acid Reflux’. We were about a quarter of the way through recording what we thought would be another album when we got talking to Chris Freeman of Hot Mulligan,” shares vocalist Leo Folan. “He enjoyed the demo of “ELW” we sent and said he’d be like to our whole project. At that time, we had about 15 songs written and all in various stages of the recording process.”
“We decided to narrow those down to the five songs we thought were the most fleshed out in terms of songwriting, but also that showed the most versatility in style. We really enjoy making songs that shouldn’t work together but somehow do, and this EP, in our opinion, is a great example of that. We ended up having an EP that consists of punk, emo, pop, acoustic, and grunge mixed by a musician from one of our favourite bands & that’s something we’re beyond excited about.”
Ricky Mortis
A fast-paced punky emo track that we think combines the sounds of our first two records, creating something new while also still feeling like a classic “Burp” song.
Checkers
‘Checkers’ takes the first riff Leo (Folan) ever wrote back when he was 13 and turns that into a full song. Leo showed us a video of him playing the riff at a rehearsal, and as a joke, we jammed over it. We jammed on that riff for so long it became a song. Lyrically, Leo and Nathan (Richer) wrote the song from the perspective of someone who is bitter and angry that someone left him behind, but refuses to self-reflect in any meaningful way.
Stars
A complete change of pace for the EP and Burp. in general. We tried making it a full band song, but it just didn’t have the same impact. Lyrically, Leo tried to write this song about his girlfriend, but ended up writing it about two Resident Evil characters that he always thought would end up together. They never romantically did anything, but there was clearly a connection. He wrote it from the perspective of the female character who is under mind control in one of the games. Basically she is trapped inside her own mind, and this is her singing to the brainwashed version of herself.
Sorry About Nathan (Feat. Ron’s Car)
This song is a take on a Midwest / Post Emo track. It combines sparkly guitars and super clean vocals, with big distorted guitars and screeched vocals. The first ever Burp. song that Nathan wrote the instrumental and the lyrics for. Leo said, “It feels like a standard Burp. song that comes from an alternate universe where I was just a singer and not a guitar player.”
ELW
This is our attempt at writing a pop-rock song. Leo still tried to sneak some fancy stuff in there, but also kept it as diatonic as possible. Lyrically, it is a love letter to all of the people who have talked shit about us behind our backs.
‘Video Games & Cartoons’ by Burp. is out now.
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