Skaters is not so much a punk rock band in music as they are in attitude. For sure, there is a lot of punk in the band\u2019s songs; their material quick, catchy, and lively with tight guitars and a whole lot of passion. But the group\u2019s nonchalant audacity on its debut, named in honor of their hometown, Manhattan<\/i>, is what makes its members (singer Michael Ian Cummings, drummer Noah Rubin, and guitarist Joshua Hubbard) real rebels. The trio considered this album a totally empty canvas and decided to fill it with every idea \u2013 however absurd or great \u2013 that came into their heads. As a result, Manhattan<\/i> has no genre; it is a patchwork of so many different musical ideas that it is hard to classify.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one thing for the band to have the gall to just go berserk and messy with different music styles, but Skaters actually makes an absolutely outstanding album out of this. The diversity of the disc amazing, but what is really awesome is that the band makes totally adorable power pop numbers out of virtually any musical muse. Skaters achieves a lot in the fast and compact punk skeleton of Manhattan<\/i>, which lasts all of 34 minutes with a total of 11 songs. But don\u2019t let the meager track lengths of two and three minutes fool you.<\/p>\n
In the marvelous eclecticism of Manhattan<\/i>, there aren\u2019t that many true \u201cpunk\u201d moments. \u201cNice Hat\u201d is one of the songs where Skaters comes closest to sounding punk, but in a nettlesome Pixies or Nirvana way. \u201cSchemers\u201d is another sort of punk moment, but the playful Ramones type. On the other end of the spectrum, the trio goes totally and shamelessly reggae on \u201cBand Breaker\u201d and has a strange mix of New Wave with a Caribbean flair on \u201cFear Of The Knife.\u201d On \u201cDeadbolt,\u201d the group sounds like some \u201880s goth rock outfit, and like some \u201880s surrealist act on \u201cI Wanna Dance.\u201d But they play the part of a lovely guitar-based indie rock outfit with a nostalgic twist on \u201cTo Be Young,\u201d \u201cSymptomatic,\u201d and \u201cOne Of Us.\u201d But on \u201cMiss Teen Massachusetts\u201d and \u201cThis Much I Care,\u201d they personify a darker glam rock act.<\/p>\n
Despite putting on the many faces, Manhattan<\/i> does not sound even a bit uneven, although it should. The songs effortlessly flow from one to another, as if they were meant to be with each other. Manhattan<\/i> is one big happy party where unpredictability is the norm, and the only thing predictable is the fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":31788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[9319],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-43499","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-skaters","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43499"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43499"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}