If you’re a pop punk fan and you haven’t listened to Handguns, you’re doing it wrong. With the release of their last EP entitled Don’t Bite Your Tongue, Handguns set high expectations for themselves for their debut full length Angst which is set to release on September 25th via Pure Noise Records. On Angst, this five-piece band from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania lived up to and exceeded all the hype that has been following them.”Porch Light” is a fantastic track to start a fantastic album with. The first thing that the vocalist, Taylor, yells is “Waiting for my wake-up call but I feel it’s not coming”, and if your jaw hasn’t hit the floor yet, it will soon. This song sets the tone for the rest of the album with catchy choruses, poppy guitar riffs, and by having some fun. Taylor is one to yell out words out of no where such as “Yeah!”, but this is nothing new for anyone who has listened to the band before.The third track, “Long October”, is one of the singles that was released and is one of the best of the album. With one of the best choruses on the album and very good lyrics, this song will definitely catch people’s attention. This song played live will get a crowd moving and singing along with every word.The fifth track, “Early Retirement”, will likely be hit or miss with most people. The song begins and you’ll shortly notice that this song is not Handguns’ normal style at all. The vocals kick in and the first thing that comes to my mind is Blink-182. The fast vocals seem to be a throwback to older pop punk and the soundclips that are thrown in throughout the entire song, while cheesy, really make it different and unique.
The final two tracks, “Fade Away” and “Where I Belong”, team up to create a spectacular ending to Angst. Every time the songs come on, I have to sing along as loud as I can. With every word that is sung, you can really hear the emotion in the vocalist’s voice and it makes the songs so much better. The guitar licks are so energetic and fit the music perfectly in these songs as well.
The aforementioned tracks are the ones that you need to listen to, but every single song on Angst is killer and they all should be listened to. With the release of this album, Handguns is going to make a huge impact on the pop punk scene and this will be considered an album that every pop punk fan has to listen to. If you enjoy the singles released so far, be sure to pre-order this album because those are just the tip of the iceberg. Get bent.
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