Music Features
Album Review: Artist vs. Poet's Favorite Fix
If you first take a look at the band Artist vs. Poet, they look like every other mainstream band fighting for a name in the punk-pop scene—a scene that consists of hodgepodge of washed up sellouts that we never hear from again. To be completely honest, I’m not into punk bands trying to go pop because 90% of the time their albums are worthless. Most of them think that a haircut and trendy clothes will somehow change the sound of their band—the end result is usually a group of five Pete Wentz looks-alikes who rarely produce quality content fit for radio play.
But we have seen bands like Green Day and Blink 182 make the metamorphosis away from the dying, repetitive genre of punk rock work in the past—and very well at any rate. With more recent success stories of bands like Boys Like Girls and Motion City Soundtrack auspiciously finding a happy medium of the two sounds and charting, there may be a chance for the Fall Out Boy hopefuls of the world. Artist vs. Poet may just be one these bands, as they bring a great new compilation with their first full length album released on Fearless Records, Favorite Fix, which hit stores on March 2.
A follow-up to their mildly popular track “Runaway” from their self-titled EP that landed the newborn band a reputable name—and has actually been in rotation on my iPod for the last few weeks—the album contains a stellar mix of ballad-like pop tunes and those of classic punk. Tracks like “Alive” and “Miserably Loving You” possess the emo vocal sound keeping true to their genre but provide an honest lyric with an age-appropriate subject—the miserable indulgence of love—that a young scene band should stick to. While on the appropriate subject of age, songs like “Damn Rough Night” chant humorously about the perils of being a barely-legal, bellowing “Turning 21 is a bitch to go through, and if I had the chance to know, I'd do it all again.” Others like “He’s Just Not Me,” “Car Crash” and “Broke but Not Broken” provide up-tempo punk-esque tunes reminiscent of a young Third Eye Blind with similar, play-it-safe subjects but that sound pretty dang awesome—and are in a league above comparable.
Artist vs. Poet seem to understand the evolution of the punk genre and their place in it. And we’ll be sure to see it from others groundbreaking underdogs like Sparks the Rescue, The Scenic, and new band to the Fearless family, Go Radio that can no doubt follow in the footsteps of Artist vs. Poet.
Among the dark horses of punk/pop, Artist vs. Poet is definitely a name that we’ll be witnessing soon among the All American Rejects of the world. In fact, we’ll be able to see Artist vs. Poet this summer on the drastically cut lineup of the Vans Warped Tour. For now Favorite Fix—available on iTunes for $7.99—is definitely in the mix of my favorite picks.
Katherine Epstein for Citadel Digital © 2010
Click here for more album reviews and previews
