Incase you didn’t know, pop punk is in a revival. There’s plenty of bands playing with the formula and giving it good ol’ spin around. So, with this in mind, it takes something pretty special to stand out from the crowd.
Second To Last bring the dual vocals reminiscent of early Taking Back Sunday and repetitive melodies ala New Found Glory. Lyrically the band are in the kind of typical emotional stuff that has foreseen the lives of many band members up to that point, most being with those girls who mess us about (Men of the world, we all know the type. Don’t let her bring you down!) and so all this kind of culminates in just, average kind of stuff really.
Ok, so it’s above average because some of the melodies are pretty catchy and you wouldn’t turn ‘Vessel’ off, but aside from that there isn’t much else here. Nothing groundbreaking. Nothing to make them your new favourite band. Nothing to really solidify them as worthy pop punk successors to all those bringing the fun back to us one posi comeback song at a time.
For now, it’s not great, but hopefully things will pick up in the future. We don’t need more pop punk bands, but they’re certainly always welcomed.
3.5/5
‘Vessel EP’ by Second To Last is out now on Hella Mad Records.
Second To Last links: Facebook|Bandcamp
Words by Michael Brown (@MikeyMiracle)
